The New Paltz schools will close the 30-day public-comment period on changes to its school safety plan next week. The revisions are primarily focused on campus access.
Under a section of the 32-page document labeled “Facilities Initiatives” is a proposed update requiring students at the high school and the middle school to present their ID badges when entering their school buildings. Elementary students also have badges. Should the initiative proceed, parents or guardians picking up their kids from school will have to present their district-issued IDs.
While the district is already issuing student ID badges, schools superintendent Stephen Gratto said the change would see them routinely used like never before. Well, like never before since a pair of incidents last year. Since then, the practice has become commonplace. Codifying them into the district safety plan would ensure more rigorous ID checks will continue.
“We did not always check students at the door,” he said. “Entering the building in the morning and at other times we didn’t always make them show their badges, but in the last year and a half we have done so religiously.”
In the morning of Tuesday, April 18, 2024, 18-year-old Newburgh resident Ben T. Kooperman allegedly first entered New Paltz Middle School, and then allegedly entered New Paltz High School. After fleeing the latter, he was arrested by the New Paltz police.
According to a letter to the community later that day, Gratto said the intrusion in the middle school had occurred shortly after 8 a.m. when “an 18-year-old individual, in no way connected with our school” walked through the front door by pretending to be a student. Kooperman was in the building for several minutes before a staff member asked him for identification, and when he fled local police were notified.
According to Gratto’s letter, Kooperman then attempted to gain access to New Paltz High School, roughly two miles from the middle school, but found its exterior doors locked. According to police, at around 8:20 a.m., Kooperman was refused entrance through the cafeteria. He then allegedly went to the front entrance and rang the bell, was buzzed into the building, and was met by a police officer and school administrators. Kooperman again fled, and was apprehended near the entrance to the high school on South Putt Corners Road.
“The individual expressed to the police that he thought it would be funny to see if he could enter school buildings without getting caught,” wrote Gratto.
In a separate incident two days earlier, another unnamed individual was let into the high school by a student, supposedly to donate school equipment to a teacher. According to district officials, in both cases, the intruders were unarmed.
The elementary ID checks are more about ensuring students are being picked up by someone in their family.
“At the elementary schools, kids either get on the bus or their parent or guardian picks them up,” Gratto said last week. “We let them out one at a time to make sure that [teachers] are getting the right student with the right parent, and the parents need to show that they have the ID badge for the student to pick them up.”
Even though parents and district staff get to know one another over the course of the school year, showing ID badges is still required at pickup.
“We have a lot of parents who pick up their kids at school, and they have to show their ID before they can actually get the child and we are,” Gratto said. “We’re pretty strict about it. Obviously doesn’t take long for our administrators to know who the kids are, but even though we know who the kids go with we have them show their badges, anyway. Because we don’t want to be in a position someday where a substitute is there and the parents aren’t showing badges.”
The public-comment period on the changes in the safety plan will end Tuesday, August 5. The board of education will hold a public hearing on the amendments the following evening.
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