The board of education is asking that money earmarked for new science labs at Avon Middle School instead pay for nearly 300 security cameras at all of its buildings, a move members said is in response to the school massacre in Florida last week that left 17 students and staff dead.
Some cameras were installed at the schools after the 2012 Sandy Hook shootings to give staff a view outside the buildings. The plan developed then called for many more cameras but the town never followed through. Last week’s mass shooting prompted school officials to find some way of putting that plan back in motion.
“That put the security cameras at the forefront of our priority list; safety comes first,” said board Chairwoman Debra Chute after the board met on Wednesday.
At the meeting the board voted to ask the town to take $667,412 that was to be spent on new science labs at the middle school and put it in a special account for cameras. Other security devices may also be purchased if need be. The town council has to approve that move and is expected to act when it meets March 1.
The new cameras would be installed this summer at the five schools and at the board’s central offices. How many cameras will be purchased has not yet been determined. But Myles Altimus, the board’s director of operations, said the plan school, police and town officials developed in 2013 called for 275 cameras inside and outside the buildings. The new cameras will address blind spots school staff now have of the buildings’ exteriors and let them see what is going in many places inside.
Although the Florida shooting put that kind of incident in the forefront of people’s minds, board member Jeffrey Fleischman said there are many other safety issues cameras can address. One of those is monitoring students inside and outside the school buildings, he said.
Board members said the cameras are the first step in better securing schools. One of the members, Houston Putnam Lowry, said he would like to see measures like bulletproof window glass and doors. At one point the police department had a school resource officer assigned to Avon High School and board member Jay Spivak said he would like to see that revisited. Spivak said security guards at the high school also need to be more vigilant about checking the identity of people entering the building.
The board’s vote was unanimous but members were frustrated by the choice they had to make between improvements to the middle school’s science labs and security. The town appropriated $667,412 for the science lab project but an architect then determined the work would cost $2.1 million and the project has been in limbo ever since. Board members said they still think science labs should be improved.
“I don’t want us to sacrifice academics for security, we should be able to afford both,” Spivak said.