School Security Expert Presents Review

After the tragic shooting deaths of 20 children in Newtown, Conn. on Dec. 14, 2012, Cedar Grove parents approached the board of education to ask what was being done to ensure the safety of their children.

In response, the board hired Triangle Training Group, LLC, for around $12,000 to review school safety measures and report back.

On Tuesday, April 16, Cedar Grove resident Bill Fearon, an active duty law-enforcement officer and President of Triangle Training Group did just that —presenting his findings to the board.

“The biggest think we looked at is cooperation from the local police department, to the administration and school board” said Fearon. “The collaboration together has been phenomenal.”

Fearon has been doing school safety and training for the past 10 years and has trained thousands of police officers from the federal, state, local and county levels as well as military personnel, he said. He is a subject matter expert in school safety and security.

The first step of the safety review was to perform walk-throughs of all the schools, observe lockdown drills and train administrators. The training will be an ongoing effort, said Cedar Grove Superintendent of Schools Dr. Gene Polles, and all new teachers will be trained as well.

The safety of Cedar Grove's schools is especially important to Fearon, since he has three children in the district.

“Our most prized commodity is our children,” he said.

Fearon wrote a 20-page safety report with suggestions for improvements, which has been submitted and reviewed by the board.

The board plans to set a date to present the findings to Cedar Grove parents after Spring Break, said Polles.

Besides cooperation, another area of paramount importance are the initial checkpoints, or points of entry at each building, said Fearon.

The district is looking into a second level of security so when someone enters the building they will have to show their identification to be buzzed into the building. From there, Fearon looks to better secure a second set of doors before access can be gained into the school.

“Rapid response is to bring in a lot of assets very quickly,” said Fearon. “Minutes count, seconds count.”

A second line of defense will buy that much more time for first responders to get to the scene, he said.

“There are always people out there who have bad intentions,” he added. “Teachers and school are first line of defense which is what we try to coordinate.”

For this reason, Fearon will continue to train teachers and administrators in emergency procedures and a quick reference guide will be posted in every classroom.

The guide will say what to do in certain situations including lockdown for an active shooter, evacuation and bomb threat, shelter in place and reverse evacuation.

The plan is to practice the drills ad nauseum, said Polles, so the drills become as routine as fire drills. Teachers need to know the proper way to barricade a doorway and the best place to hide in the classroom as well as concealment versus cover.

“The Cedar Grove police have been with us every step of the way,” said Polles. “They have been visual within our buildings, on our campus areas, in our parking lots at night, at our games and activities. Thank you to the Cedar Grove Police for all their help.”

The goal, said Fearon, is to harden the target, but not to the point where it disrupts the lives of the students. They could put up razor wire and steel doors but we don't want to do that, he said.

“Denial is our biggest enemy, but that has not happened here,” he said. “The second we say this can't happen in Cedar Grove is when we fail.”