At the Livingston Board of Education meeting, held on Tuesday, September 26, boardmembers discussed school safety and security.
Superintendent of Schools Matthew Block and district security specialist Justin Toomey gave a presentation about newupdates to school security in Livingston, as well as a new program that the state of New Jersey has implemented into its schools.
“It’s really important to talk about school safety and that is a daily effort on our part,” Block said, “It’s not something that we think about once in a while, or meet about a couple times a year. Every day we think about our schools and how to keep them as safe as possible.”
The presentation discussed how the district and Police Department are working together to ensure safety in schools, as well as the importance of it.
“Security and safety is always our top priority,” Block said, “Creating a school and community culture in which we know our students and their families follow up on concerning behavior is paramount.” He added that parents, family members, and friends need to be full participants in prevention.
“There are no 100 percents in school security, but we do know that prevention and mental wellness efforts are essential for keeping schools safe,” he stated.
Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management school based teams is a new program that the State of New Jersey has implemented, which ensures that all schools in New Jersey pro-actively intervene to prevent
The teams will provide school teachers and other staff with assis- students’ risks for engaging in violence or other harmful activities, and delivering intervention strategies to manage the risk of harm for students, who pose a potential safety risk.
The Behavioral Threat Assessment Team consists of school administrators, school mental health professionals and nurses, law enforcement and security guards, and teachers and staff.
The school assessment teams should meet at least monthly, and the team will discuss any scenarios or concerns, as well as review procedures and address any team member questions. The school administrator will assemble the team whenever a report of concerning behaviors needs to be reviewed, as soon as it is safe to do so.
Although the presentation included statistics about how 95 percent of shooters are male among other factors, district security specialist Toomey said that this program does not profile students. He said, “This isn’t profiling. It’s about those behaviors. Not discipline first, it’s support first.”
Toomey also stated that the program includes tactics used by Secret Service to protect the president.
The slide show consisted of information for parents and family that will be available on the Livingston Public Schools website members to access, as well as on nj.gov.
Public Comment
Resident Paul Boxer was happy with the contents of the presentation, but added that action must be taken earlier. “At the younger grade levels, there is plenty of intimidation, harrassment and bullying, creating the experiences that are putting kids on this path,” he said, “There also needs to be evidence based programs to prevent that.”
