The East Hampton School Board on Tuesday approved spending $81,735 from its repair reserve account to make sure the Blue Point Lockdown System — a key component of the district’s safety infrastructure — is working properly.
Adam Fine, the district superintendent, compared the blue lockdown buttons to the red fire alarms placed strategically around each of East Hampton’s three school buildings. In case of an active-shooter situation, they can be activated immediately to begin a crisis response, he said.
According to Sam Schneider, assistant superintendent for business, the current Blue Point system needs updating to make sure it works properly. As J.P. Foster, the school board president, who happens to work in the emergency communications field, put it: “It won’t work anymore if we don’t upgrade it.”
During the public hearing that preceded Tuesday’s vote, one local resident questioned the need for the expense. “This is an emergency?” asked George Doty. He later suggested that the board seemed to be making “a rush to judgment.”
Sandra Vorpahl, a board member, pointed out that school is set to begin in about two weeks.
Voters approved the creation of the repair reserve fund by ballot referendum in 2022. Public hearings are required before the district can spend the money. The fund had just over $725,000 in it — money taken from end-of-year budget surpluses and set aside for repairs like these — before the board voted to make the withdrawal “I think we’ve made pretty good use of the money in there,” Mr. Schneider said.
The board also voted to hire Stephen Field as the district’s newest bus driver, though additional drivers are still needed to replace some who retired in June. School officials have encouraged anyone with interest in driving a school bus to contact the transportation department.
“We will provide free training to anyone who is interested,” Mr. Schneider said.
Also on Tuesday, the school board adopted a new districtwide policy manual, representing a job well done, Mr. Fine said, by Mr. Schneider and the policy committee. All but 20 “local policies” specific to East Hampton were reviewed for compliance with state standards. This year, Mr. Fine said, reviewing those local policies will be the priority for the committee. “Time goes on and things change,” he said.
The board also approved the district’s first disaster recovery plan, about a year after the state comptroller’s office audited its technology systems and cited the district for not having such a plan. “It is obviously not a public document” because of its sensitive nature, Mr. Fine said. “It is a cybersecurity plan if, God forbid, something happened and we were hacked.”
In a report on the progress of summertime capital project work, Mr. Schneider said he was pleased with the repaving of the parking lot at the John M. Marshall Elementary School and with the progress of the outdoor cafeteria seating area at East Hampton High School.
“It’s probably not going to be ready for the first day of school, but it will be ready fairly soon thereafter. . . . It looks like it’s going to be a really nice project,” he said.