The Saugerties Central School District’s (SCSD) Board of Education voted 6-2 last week to engage Goshen-based Atlas Security Services as the districtwide security firm for the 2023-24 school year. Financial costs of the agreement were not available as of press time.
The Atlas website lists among its clients Ulster BOCES, Legoland, Pepsi Cola, Frito-Lay and school districts in Goshen, Livingston Manor, Roscoe and the Tri-Valley Central School District.
The SCSD received proposals from several security companies before settling on Atlas.
The district recently conducted a school safety survey, receiving 331 unique responses to the survey, 70 percent identified themselves as parents, 35 percent district employees and 4 percent students.
Around 81.6 percent of respondents said they would support armed certified security guards in the district’s elementary schools, compared to 14.5 percent who would not. Support was even higher at the high school level, where 83.3 percent favored armed certified security guards and 13.4 percent did not.
The results were further broken down into specific cohorts, with 86.7 percent of those who identified as elementary school parents supporting armed security guards, 12 percent opposing them, and 1.3 percent undecided. Of the secondary parents, 82.4 percent supported armed guards on the Jr./Sr. High School campus, while 13.4 percent opposed it, and 4.2 percent were undecided.
Both elementary (85.7 percent) and secondary (84.6 percent) students favored armed guards in their schools, as did elementary (80.9 percent) and secondary (81.7 percent) employees.
Trustees James Mooney and Raymond Maclary cast the no votes, with the former having previously shared concerns about armed guards on school campuses.
“I’m very much against armed security,” Mooney said during a School Board meeting held on Tuesday, July 11. “I’m not against an armed SRO (school resource officer) as they’re trained.”
At that meeting, Mooney added that he was worried that some students with disabilities, particularly those on the autism spectrum, might not respond quickly to commands and asked that the district consider requiring extra training to help assure the safety of every student.
At the School Board meeting held on Tuesday, August 1, Mooney again expressed misgivings about armed guards.
“I recognize the need for security in our buildings,” he said. “We live in a changing world. However, be voting no as I’m against the idea that after this vote, we will not have a say as to whether or not they carry armed weapons.”
While acknowledging that the majority of survey respondents favored armed security in SCSD schools, he added that the relatively low turnout may not be truly indicative of how the community feels about the issue
“I wish there was more than 300 people that filled out a survey in a district that has over a thousand kids on an issue that is this magnanimous (sic),” Mooney said.
The next meeting of the SCSD Board of Education is scheduled for Tuesday, August 15.
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