Mt. Laurel Schools making buildings safer with security upgrades, defibrillators

The Mt. Laurel School District is preparing for the installation of multiple security upgrades at all school buildings.

With the district’s summer projects now completed, Superintendent Antoinette Rath said the district will soon be installing panic buttons and rooftop beacons. The upgrades were first announced when the board of education approved the district’s 2014–15 budget last spring.

The school is making the upgrades to provide faster notification to emergency personnel in case of an emergency. The panic buttons will provide direct contact to the police. Rath said many school districts do not have a panic button to alert authorities.

While the buttons can put schools in direct contact with the police, the rooftop beacons will serve as an exterior notification to people outside the building.

“We’ll have a beacon light so people in the area will know something is wrong,” Rath said.

All Mt. Laurel schools also now have automated external defibrillators. The defibrillators are required for all New Jersey schools after the state legislature passed a bill called Janet’s Law. The bill was named in memory of 11-year-old Janet Zilinski of Warren who died of cardiac arrest during cheerleading practice after school.

With the passage of the law, Rath said the district put installing the defibrillators at the top of its list of new projects.

“The defibs were a budget priority,” she said.

All district teachers had to go through training to use the defibrillators, which will be accessible during classes as well as for athletic and after school activities.