Central Regional Details Security Measures In Both Schools

BAYVILLE, NJ - Anyone who tries to get into Central Regional High School or the Middle School should be foiled by locked doors and the presence of an armed Berkeley township police officer in both buildings.

"I can tell you that since the Sandy Hook shootings, we have had an armed Berkeley police officer - current officer, not a retiree - in each building every day during the school year," district Administrator Kevin O'Shea said. "We contract with Berkeley Township for this via a shared services contract. It has worked well and also given the fact that the police station is only about 2 miles away from our campus, we believe that we are safe."

All of the secondary entrances in both schools are kept locked. The primary entrances require either a swipe key or a hard key to enter, O'Shea said.

The sprawling high school, which Superintendent Triantafillos Parlapanides once referred to as - "the largest ranch house in Ocean County" - has roughly nine entrances that are used during the day. There is only one main entrance into the middle school used by both students and parents, O'Shea said.

"As far as the high school, we try to keep a balance of safety but also we want to try to mimic a college campus to a certain extent and allow the students to venture outside the building," he said.

The district has also discussed installing an additional vestibule for the front door of the Middle School.

"That is something that we will look to incorporate into our budget for next year," O'Shea said. "We have also gotten a proposal for a strobe light lockdown system that we will be considering as well."

School shootings have been highlighted once again after the massacre at a high school in Florida on Wednesday.

Nikolas Cruz, 19, who barged into his former high school with a semiautomatic AR-15 rifle, has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder, one count for each of the students and adults he killed, according to the New York Times.

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Photo: Patricia A. Miller