Bridgewater mayor, superintendent split over school security

BRIDGEWATER – Though Mayor Matthew Moench and Superintendent of Schools Robert Beers agree that protecting students is their common goal, they disagree on how it can be achieved.

That disagreement became public as the mayor and superintendent issued statements and emails outlining their differences.

Though Beers said Friday that "no division exists" and that township and school officials are working together, he said it was time "to take down the collective temperature."

"We have never had and never will have competing interests with the municipalities," Beers said in his statement released at noon on Friday. "Any mention of division between administration, local police and our district security employees appears to be politically motivated."

Beers said the district has a good working relationship with Raritan officials.

Beers said the issue is "complex" and there is "no single panacea."

The controversy began earlier this month when Beers presented a plan to increase security in the district at the June 14 school board meeting. The school district has 8,500 students in 11 schools, 10 in Bridgewater and one in Raritan. The district also has about a thousand employees.

That plan, which Beers said took a "holistic" approach, called for the school district to hire an assistant district security coordinator, four security monitors and two crossing guards at the high school.

That would be in addition to the current two school resource officers, a district security coordinator and three Class 3 police officers. Class 3 officers are retired officers less than 65 years old who served as fully trained, fulltime officers.

Beers said the district has already added security cameras, access swipes, panic buttons and other measures that cannot be divulged because of their confidential nature.

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But Moench was critical of the plan, saying it is "something that we believe is not in the best interest of our students or our officers, and it is not an effective way of providing security to our school system." Moench emphasized that "sworn" police officers should be assigned "in every school every day of the year."

In the third email on the issue sent to township residents, the mayor outlined the differences between Class 3 officers and campus monitors "so you can make an informed decision on who you'd like to be protecting our children and teachers."

"I hope you join me in my unwavering position that anyone other than Bridgewater Sworn Police Officers protecting our children is unacceptable," Moench said in a Thursday evening email to residents.

The public split over the security plan began Monday when the township assigned a police officer to every one of the 10 schools in the township for the last week of school, which ended on Thursday. The decision came after township and school district officials met the previous Friday (June 17) to discuss security.

But Beers said he was not notified in advance that the officers were going to be stationed at all the schools, a requirement in the memo of understanding between the township and the school district.

The superintendent also said there was no threat to the school district, three weeks after the mass shooting at an Uvalde, Texas school which claimed the lives of 19 children and two adults.

In a press release on Monday, Moench said assigning the officers was "absolutely necessary for this moment in time."

"With so many graduations and other large-scale events happening throughout the district this coming week, this is a necessary step for the township to take to ensure the security of the school district and the safety of our children," the mayor continued.

In the agreement between the school district and the township, the school district pays one school resource officer and the three Class 3 officers while the township pays the other school resource officer.

Though Moench has not outlined how his proposal to put an officer in every school would be funded, he said at Thursday's council meeting that more money was put into the police department's budget in the township's $47.7 million budget. Councilman Michael Kirsh said the budget has sufficient "flexibility" to fund increased security at the schools.

Beers defended the hiring of the campus monitors, saying they "bring outstanding credentials in their previous positions as high-ranking officials in the New Jersey State Police, Somerset County Prosecutor's Office and local police departments. Each has more than 20 years of service and three were in the military.

"Only the most impeccable records from candidates were considered by the district in the hiring process," he said.

The issue arises at a critical time for the township police department.

Police Chief Paul Payne will be retiring at the end of August after serving a quarter of a century in the police department. Payne became chief in July 2020.

The township is also awaiting the results of an investigation into the police department response to a fight among two teenagers at the Bridgewater Commons in February. A viral video of the incident sparked allegations that the police response was racially motivated because a Black teen was wrestled to the floor and handcuffed while the other teen was not.

Nationally known civil rights attorney Ben Crump, in a press conference at the municipal complex earlier this year, said he intended to file a federal lawsuit in connection with the incident, but no lawsuit has yet been filed.

The next Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education meeting is scheduled for Tuesday evening in the media center at the high school.

This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Bridgewater NJ mayor, superintendent split over school security