By Nancie Ludwig  10/6/06

The recent violent school events across the United States, involving not only students, but homicidal residents targeting defenseless schools, have prompted me to write about the potential security risks in Randolph.

This year the Police Department, with the approval of Randolph Town Council has pulled a valuable police officer from the Middle School, which has nearly 1500 students, teachers, and staff in the building during School hours. It seems budgetary constraints have dictated the usage of the officer to cover needs elsewhere in town.

Even with the additional officer available to the Department, it is still unclear to me if there is sufficient coverage for a town of nearly 26 thousand residents. This determination can only come from data collected by an independent source. Population variables for day and evening hours would be considered in the study to predict what needs may not be sufficient during day time hours when residents leave Randolph and go to work elsewhere and evening hours when residents return home.

As a candidate for Town Council I have been reviewing the 2006 Budget and noticed that a Manpower Study was requested by the Police Chief, but was denied. Although the budget did not include more officers, the Chief had presented the town council with an in house study prior to budget approval seeking 6 new officers to increase the police force from 40 to 46 officers for our town. Rather than hiring these new officers, restructuring took place soon after, to get more officers out on the streets to provide coverage for our town’s growth.

Even with the restructuring of our police force, coverage must sometimes come from retired police officers. That is troubling for a number of reasons. Retired officers have served their community with respect, this is a time in their life that we should be treating them with respect and not exploiting their experience in order to cover a budget inadequacy. They are certainly capable of serving, but should we be asking?

Last year, the BOE decided to pull the DARE program from 5th grade elementary classes. This program taught children the strategies of drug and alcohol avoidance thru skits, role play and officer programs. Kids were taught strategies to say “No” in many different ways. Who will teach them and what programs will go away next? When was the last time you heard about neighborhood watch in our town. It is just my gut feeling that you won’t anytime soon, until the budget is arranged in such a way to provide the coverage the growth of our town dictates.

I want to strongly encourage the Town Council to bring back the officer to the Middle School. In my opinion, one officer at the High School is not enough for a combined campus that houses over 3000 of Randolph’s youngest residents, staff and employees. If I had to choose the best location for an officer to spend his or her time for the good of the community, it would be serving and protecting our students in the Middle and High Schools during daylight hours. These schools seem to be targeted with increasing frequency in our ever changing society. Officers in schools are a deterrent and valuable to youth in many ways.

As a mother of two children that have attended Randolph Schools, as a substitute teacher for Rockaway TWP, and a Democratic Candidate for Randolph Town Council, I Respectfully submit this article.