The issue of school safety is of paramount importance in the Pennsauken School District. To that end, the Board of Education, working in partnership with both the school administration and Pennsauken’s municipal government, has helped to coordinate a series of drills that allow local first responders – EMS, firefighters, and police – to train at school facilities.

“There have been so many attacks in schools, the procedures have changed dramatically,” says Board President Nick Perry. “The only way to leverage what we’ve learned from these incidents is for our first responders to get hands-on training in the buildings themselves.”

The drills, many of which were held over winter break to take full advantage of school buildings, allowed Pennsauken’s police, fire department, and EMS squad an opportunity to practice a series of rapid response scenarios. In addition to these training exercises, all Pennsauken schools conduct both fire and “shelter in place” drills on a continual basis, to help better prepare teachers, staff, and students in the case of an emergency.

“We have a responsibility to make school facilities as secure as possible, allowing our community’s children to be safe from the time they get on the bus in the morning, to the time they get home from school in the afternoon.”

As part of this commitment, the Board of Education and school administration have received invaluable feedback from Pennsauken’s first responders, who had an opportunity to evaluate school security features to not only see if any weaknesses are present, but also find ways to further enhance school safety.

“There are a lot of things that now have been developed in the realm of school safety that we are working to address,” explains Perry. “We, as well as the school administration and Pennsauken’s municipal government, are continually looking to further enhance the safety of school staff and students. It’s an important, ongoing process.”