Brookfield schools moving forward with more security upgrades

BROOKFIELD — Local officials are making headway in an effort to add staff and enhance physical security measures across the town’s school district.

“We are working through it very deliberately,” Board of Education Chair Bob Belden said last week.

After a mass shooting at an elementary school in May in Uvalde, Texas, the Brookfield Board of Education assembled a School

Security Task Force to review the district’s security protocols and consider adding additional security personnel to its school buildings.

In August, voters approved recommendations from the task force to authorize about $251,000 to fund the hiring of armed school resource officers at the town’s elementary schools and $345,000 to hire five unarmed security guards to patrol the town’s four school buildings,

along with a single armed security officer tasked with monitoring after-school events at Brookfield High School.

The added school resource officer positions have already been filled by certified members of the Brookfield Police Department, according to Chief of Police John Puglisi. A member of the School Security Task Force, Puglisi said Monday that when voters approved the Board of Education’s request for adding more officers to the schools, he “immediately put two additional senior officers in those positions.”

According to Puglisi, Officer Kelsey Sullivan, a five-year department veteran, was deployed to Huckleberry Hill Elementary School, while Officer Mitchell Heller, a 10-year veteran, was deployed to Center Elementary School.

The police chief explained that the police department is working to “backfill” the officer positions left open after the veteran officers were assigned to the schools.

“The process takes time, and we have (two) additional new officers who are still in our field training program,” Puglisi said in an email. “We hope to have two additional candidates in the police academy this month.”

The Brookfield Police Department is also tasked with hiring the armed school security officer positions laid out under the plans approved by the Board of Education. Puglisi said interviews have been conducted and said “two strong candidates” are undergoing background checks.

“No one has been hired yet,” he added.

While tasked with overseeing the school resource officers and hiring the armed school security officers, the police department is not involved in hiring the unarmed security roles called for under the Board of Education plans.

At a meeting of the school board last week, Brookfield Superintendent of Schools John Barile noted the district has hired one unarmed daytime high school security monitor while continuing an interview process for an “evening security monitor.”

A resume and cover letter obtained by the News-Times shows the school district hired Sheila Savage to fill the daytime security monitor role. Since 2018, Savage has worked as a substitute teacher and a paraprofessional at Huckleberry Hill Elementary School after nearly 10 years of producing television shows for companies, including TLC & Sharp Entertainment, VH1 and MTV.

A job description for the security monitor role provided by the school district outlines the position as “responsible for supporting the maintenance of a safe environment for students and staff ” through a lengthy list of responsibilities, including checking interior rooms and performing general hazards surveillance, along with patrolling school buildings and grounds “to prevent vandalism and unauthorized entry.”

Other responsibilities include monitoring school security cameras, confronting “unauthorized persons” visiting school buildings, and assisting with “the movement of students in emergencies.”

“This new security monitor will be starting soon and likely approved at next week’s …regular meeting of the Board of Education’s consent agenda,” Barile said in an email.

In addition to adding the police officers and hiring the armed and unarmed security staff, the School Security Task Force plans approved by the Board of Education are also looking at ways to enhance physical security around the town’s school buildings.

According to Belden, a “lively” meeting of the task force on Nov. 3 led to the approval of requests for funding to install specific items, including more surveillance cameras and a server to store captured footage, as well as opendoor alarms, and to enhance radio technology to link school officials with the town’s first responder communications systems.

Board member Joy Greenstien, who heads the school district’s School Facilities Committee, said the board reviewed the task force’s recommendations, noting additional requests to include additional public address systems for school bathrooms, gate control for access to the back of Whisconier Middle School, and the possibility of adding subtle concrete barriers in front of school entrances.

A review of cost estimates to install the priority items found the school district’s budget has “sufficient funding to cover all of those items,” Belden added.

“The Board of Finance and Board of Selectman have approved a regular amount of funding for security enhancements and the amount we have is sufficient to cover those, so we don’t actually have to ask the town for money, which is great,” he said.

Belden is a member of the task force, along with fellow board members Rosa Fernandes and Sharon Butow. It also includes Barile and Puglisi; along with the town’s fire marshal, Brookfield High School Principal Marc Balanda, the school district’s directors of technology and facilities and three parents with professional security backgrounds.

He noted that the staffing effort and the physical enhancement priorities are just two aspects of the School Security Task Force’s work.

“The first wave was about staffing, the second wave of the review was about physical things, then IT threat assessment and tools,” Belden said.

Since June, the task force has met seven times. Its next meeting is scheduled for Thursday morning.