Seaford School District announces Security Guard Staffing Committee

Four Seaford parents, two trustees and several schoolteachers and administrators have been chosen as members of the District’s newly established Security Guard Staffing Review Advisory Committee.

At the district’s monthly school board meeting on June 7, Dr. Adele Pecora, School Superintendent, announced that the district selected the committee’s members. The board of education then passed a resolution to officially create the committee at a June 20 workshop meeting.

Back in April, in response to school security concerns expressed by multiple parents after the Parkland shootings, Seaford Board of Education President Bruce Kahn announced the district’s plans to create a committee that would use evidence-based research to help make security-staffing recommendations to the board.

According to the passed resolution, the committee will be tasked with reviewing current staffing of security guards and recommend potential alternatives for staffing, such as increasing the amount of guards at each school or requiring additional skills and further qualifications.

As written in the resolution, the committee will present its findings to the board by February 1, 2019, and will also report their progress on a regular basis.

“It’s an honor to be a part of this committee,” said Christopher Carini, one of four parents chosen to serve on the committee. “I look forward to working with everyone, and know that this is a very important position.”

Pecora also updated community members about other new school safety procedures and security measures in the District, at the June 7 board meeting.

Among these announcements: the district is now enrolled in the Nassau County Police Department’s RAVE application. With the RAVE app, a teacher or administrator can push a button on a smartphone application that can connect the NCPD to a building’s camera system in case of a crisis.

Pecora also announced that the school is using a new student lanyard identification system and new guest policies; the guard stations have laptops giving them access to the same cameras the Nassau police can now access; Drills the schools conduct are now in coordination with the Police Department; and the District is in the process of getting an anonymous reporting system and training staff on it.

Pecora added that she has attended several meetings with Police Commissioner Ryder with fellow administrators from the district and in neighboring districts. Those meetings along with the RAVE app, she said, all show how strong the relationship is between school districts and the NCPD.

“Sometimes in a tragedy, some really good things come out of it,” Pecora said. “The connection between the police department and the schools has been infinitely better — we have a really nice partnership.”

Nobody in attendance at the June 7 or the June 20 board meeting stood up to comment about school security or the committee.