Brookfield schools to expand police presence to elementary schools, hire unarmed guards
BROOKFIELD CTAug 1 2022— After weeks of contentious public and private debate, Board of Education members unanimously agreed last week to expand the school district’s existing School Resource Officer program to its elementary schools and also voted to hire both unarmed and armed security personnel to work at all four of the town’s public schools.
Now it’s up to the Board of Selectmen, who must approve funding for the new positions. Officers are currently assigned to Brookfield High School and Whisconier Middle School; the new staff would be placed at Center Elementary School and Huckleberry Elementary.
Board of Education Chair Bob Belden Wednesday described the measures as “enhancing” what the school district feels is an already strong school safety and security program.
“We don’t have any issues and we have actually had (the security plan) reviewed by outside agencies to see if they had any recommendations for us and generally, we get really good marks on how we are securing our schools,” he said.
“So, the question facing the Security Task Force and then to the board was, ‘what action should you take to improve your situation, considering the environment we are all living in?’”
Security personnel also could be at the soon-to-be completed Candlewood Elementary School.
“As we go to the new Candlewood Elementary School which has seven grades and 800 students or more students,” Belden said this week, “there is a feeling that we are going toward having a full police officer at that school as well.”
The Board of Education vote came more than a month after the board formed a School Security Task Force — to replace one dissolved in 2020 — to reexamine the school district’s security protocols in the wake of the May 24 mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, that took the lives of 17 students and two teachers and wounded 17 others.
The topic of arming the officers drew emotional responses from members of the public and members of the Board of Education.
During a more than two-hour executive session, Belden said board members held “vociferous debate” over whether to arm the five security guards whose role would be to secure the school buildings and monitor security cameras.
“There were differing opinions. On the one side, the argument was that arming those individuals would give you a second point of armed defense … And the other side of the discussion was that their jobs don’t require a gun — they are monitoring cameras and doors mostly,” Belden said, adding the Security Task Force was “unanimous” in recommending they be unarmed.
The difference of opinion proved evident among residents who spoke during the public comment period of the meeting.
Joy Greenstein is a member of the Board of Education but spoke as “a parent and a taxpayer.”
“It’s impossible for an unarmed security monitor to be a first line of defense for this. You can’t bring a knife to a gunfight,” she said. “The unarmed school security monitor that the Security Task Force proposed … cannot protect the children at the school against an armed intruder.”
Monique Matthews said, “as parents, we are the experts when it comes to knowing what is best for our children and the Board of Ed should be listening us parents’ and our children’s voices.”
“To say that our kids … don’t need armed security — I don’t know what parent could sit here and say that we should not be protecting our kids — you might as well just unlock the school doors and just let anyone in. We need to protect our kids,” she added.
Aaron Zimmer, Chair of the Brookfield Democrat Committee disagreed.
“This idea of adding more guns to our schools would somehow keep our kids safer, it just doesn’t seem to be true — all you had to do is watch the news … from Uvalde, just look at the data from all school shootings: It is going to tell you that more ‘good guys with a gun’ does not stop a bad guy with a gun,” he said.
Shannon Riley, a Brookfield resident, parent and an educator in New York, pointed out: “I do want the board also to consider the biggest piece here and what connects all of these school shootings, was mental health. Mental health should be part of our response to something like this.”
At the July 20 school board meeting, members voted unanimously to request funding for the SROs. In a separate motion, the board voted 5-2 to hire five unarmed security officers to be on duty at each of the schools’ entrances, and one armed security officer to patrol at Brookfield High School during after-school extra-curricular activities and athletics events.
During the discussion, Belden said board members voted to add School Resource Officers to the town’s elementary schools rather than hiring armed school security officers. School Resource Officers are certified police officers or members of the police department with the ability to make and arrest, where armed security guards generally are not, he said, although they often possess either a law enforcement or military background.
Brookfield Police Chief John Puglisi, a member of the School Security Task Force, said officers assigned to the school are armed, wear uniforms and complete state-mandated training for the role. They work with administrators to develop plans and strategies to prevent or minimize dangerous situations occurring on campus or during school-sponsored activities.
They also handle juvenile and criminal matters that develop within the school, are available for conferences with students, parents and faculty-members and assist with “problems of a law enforcement or crime prevention nature,” he said.
The officers provide instruction as part of the school’s substance abuse curriculum, act as instructors for specialized, short-term programs, he said, and can discuss with students and staff subjects that touch on a basic understanding of the law or their role as a police officer.
In an email sent Thursday, Puglisi said finding officers to serve in the schools would not be a problem; but hiring their replacements could be as departments across the state struggle to replace positions left empty after a wave of retirements in recent years.
