In response to the increase in incidents of gun violence within and around schools nationwide, Haddonfield Memorial High School is slated to have an extra layer of security patrolling its halls.
At the start of the next academic year, students will come under the watch of a new Class 3 Special Officer, ensuring their days might be filled with the stresses of academia and athletics, but without the added anxiety of a potentially dangerous situation unfolding.
The move was approved at the board of education’s special meeting to approve the 2019-20 budget back on May 2. Haddonfield’s board of commissioners then passed a resolution at its June 11 meeting, amending its 2019 budget to include $50,000 set aside for the officer’s salary.
“It’s a Class 3 officer. There is (a difference between a school resource officer and a Class 3 officer), but for the district, I didn’t want to confuse the issue. It’s really a person that functions like a school resource officer. But an SRO is a member of the Haddonfield police force, a full-time member, so when they’re not working the school, they’re walking a beat,” explained Superintendent Larry Mussoline during a May 31 interview with The Sun.
“What we’re asking for is a retired officer, with a weapon, that the state of New Jersey has allowed under legislation. Most schools in the area have them, most high schools in the area have them, who will just be there when school is in session, for 180 days. This person is also paid by the borough, but we reimburse the borough.”
According to a release issued by the Haddonfield Police Department, there are 10 specific criteria upon which candidates will be evaluated. Chief among them are that the officer should: be a retired police officer from any municipality or county within the state and must also currently be a resident of the state; must be less than 65 years of age at time of appointment with a valid New Jersey driver’s license; and must pass a drug test and psychological exam.
In addition, an amendment was made to the requirements that states candidates do not have to have retired within a three-year window from the date of anticipated appointment. Officers who have retired within that window will be given first preference.
Interested parties can submit a resume to Chief Jason Cutler at [email protected]. The deadline for applications is Friday, July 19.
Compensation for the Class 3 Special Officer is set at $30 per hour over a 35-hour work week.
Mussoline said that the hiring of the officer was not exclusively for added protection, but also in the hopes that he or she could be another resource person with whom students could potentially form a bond. However, Mussoline stressed he believed the student population in the high school already had a well-placed built-in support system with teachers, staff and administrators.
“In Haddonfield, because we’re so small, our teachers and administrators at the high school are known. It’s such a positive interpersonal environment, that our kids go to our people. It would be a fallacy to me to believe that our kids would not tell…that the climate in Haddonfield Memorial High School is so bad that our kids wouldn’t tell somebody. I can’t even buy that.
“I watch our kids, and I watch them interact with the adults, and it’s almost like a brother or sister relationship than anything else. I truly believe that, if something bad happens, or if somebody knows something bad, they’re gonna come out and tell us. They’re going to tell someone at the school,” Mussoline added.
