NAUGATUCK — Education and police officials have begun evaluating the security needs of six borough schools before spending up to $1.43 million on security upgrades.
Borough administrators last week walked with the Naugatuck Police Department throughout Hillside, City Hill, Salem, Western, Cross Street and Central Avenue schools to take notes on what security systems are in place and what needs to be upgraded.
The upgrades made will be similar to what has already been completed at Andrew Avenue, Maple Hill and Hop Brook schools. Those projects, which were completed using state grant funding of about $600,000, included doors that can lock from inside the room, doors to the exterior with buzzers and window upgrades to make them shatter proof and/or bullet resistant, said Bernice Rizk, assistant business manager for the school district.
The six schools looked at last week will likely receive similar upgrades, she said. Each school will have cameras linked to the district security office at the high school, as well. The state is expected to reimburse Naugatuck about $1.1 million of the $1.43 million it will cost to make the upgrades. Money for the upgrades is included in the 2014-15 fiscal year budget.
The projects will go out to bid in the near future and will likely begin in the spring. Under state guidelines, they need to be completed by June 30. Once the work is completed, the borough’s only middle school, City Hill, and all of its grade schools will be updated with state-of-the art security.
Millions of dollars worth of security upgrades are also included in the ongoing $81 million renovation of Naugatuck High School. The project, which is expected to be complete next fall, includes about 200 cameras on the interior and exterior of the building. It will also have doors with card reader access, which will allow the school to monitor who is in the building at what times. It can also limit the times at which certain people can access the school.
The doors will also have contact sensors that will go off if they are left open. The front entrance will have two sets of doors about eight feet apart; the second set will need to be opened by school personnel or with the card reader. The windows in the front entrance will also be bullet proof.
Many of the exterior doors will not have hardware, said Principal Jan Saam, so they are only a means of egress. The pool doors will have an audible sound system so that officials will be notified if anyone gets stuck behind a locked door.
The fields and rooftops will have cameras — one at the front of the building will be able to see license plates on cars at the traffic light leading into the entrance of the school.
Saam will also have access to a mass notification system so that if there is trouble within the building, she can send out an alert that will pop up on all of the computers in the school.
She said all aspects of the building were designed with safety in mind.
“In fact, even the plantings around the campus were done with visibility in mind, as well as with accessibility of emergency vehicles in mind,” she said. “We worked closely with the Naugatuck Police Department and state police, as well as architects to make sure there were no blind spots, no hiding places.”
