BERNE — To applause from the audience Monday night, Berne-Knox-Westerlo’s school board unanimously agreed to move forward with agreements to hire a school resource officer and install a communications system in conjunction with the Albany County Sheriff’s Office.

Investigator Lee Bormann said at the meeting that the sheriff’s office is offering a school resource officer to be hired by the district at $65,000 a year.  The resource officer, while working for and being paid by the district, would remain an employee of the sheriff’s office, he said. Bormann also said that the officer would be available within the next school year.

“We recently had the transfer of one clerical position to another clerical position, and a lot of duties and responsibilities were brought with that person to the new position,” Superintendent Timothy Mundell later explained when discussing the school budget.

The savings of the salary and benefits for the other position cover about 80-percent of the cost for the resource officer, he said. According to the district’s spokesman, Ben Amey, the communications system will be entirely funded by the sheriff’s office.

The sheriff’s office, Bormann said, is currently canvassing deputies for resource officers and is seeking experienced officers who are young enough to connect with students. They will be trained and certified to work in the schools before being assigned to a district.

Bormann said that the sheriff’s office had met with three different school districts — BKW, Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk, and Voorheesville — on April 12 to discuss school security. He said that the sheriff’s office is offering several different security measures. Bormann said one of the first measures that can be offered are devices known as control stations that allow the school to contact 9-1-1 in an emergency.

“It looks like a mobile radio with a big orange button on it,” said Bormann. “And that’s a panic button where a student or staff member, faculty, can hit that button … It sends a direct communication to our 9-1-1 center.”

Four devices will be located throughout the campus, he said, and can be used for non-emergency measures such as a two-way radio for communication. Portable radios would be given to key staff members as well. Bormann said that the radio will be installed by mid-June, after the school year is over.

“We’re ready to move forward with that,” he said.

Bormann said that Voorheesville has already agreed to install the control stations in its schools, and that Mundell has expressed interest in it as well.

Bormann also said that the sheriff’s office will offer radios to bus drivers in the second phase of security measures. This would allow the drivers to communicate directly with the sheriff’s office, he said. The radios could be used in emergency or non-emergency situations as well, he said.

“It’s more of the ‘see something, say something,’” he said.

Bormann said that the bus radios would be incorporated over summer vacation.

The third phase will involve incorporating mobile devices of staff and students to contact the sheriff’s office. Bormann encouraged using the sheriff’s office app, which can connect someone to either a phone number or an online incident report in order to share information about a crime or suspicious activity.

School board member Helen  Lounsbury asked what sheriff’s office response will be like before a resource officer is hired. Bormann replied that the sheriff’s office would offer a similar response as it did when “the Instagram thing” occurred, referring to when a BKW student posted a photo with crude language on Instagram about the district that quickly spread on social media and led to police coming to the school. The student was not arrested.

While the superintendent had mentioned in a May 7 online statement that the school is working with state police to identify a “satellite office space” in school facilities, Amey said on Tuesday the district had nothing to report on that at this time.

Mundell said that a focus group for the district’s capital project has recently discussed school security and addressed things like the school entryway in the elementary school. He said that the entryways for the school will be secured with bulletproof glass, and that those entering will have to provide identification in a vestibule and then be buzzed in to enter the main office.

“It will be a very secure environment,” he said.

Amey later told The Enterprise that the secure entryways will be constructed as part of the $20 million capital project; construction for the project is scheduled to being in the summer of 2019, he said.

Mundell said that the school will also be focusing on social and emotional support and will be hiring a full-time social worker from the Parsons Child and Family Center through the Board of Cooperative Educational Services.

Mundell said that the resource officer, like the social worker, will be hired through BOCES, and that the state department of education is working to save money on the cost through BOCES. The district has a 48-percent rate on state aid for BOCES services, he said.

The board later approved a contract for a consulting school psychologist at $400 an hour. Mundell said that the school has been working with only one psychologist after a second one resigned in January. The contracted psychologist would handle seven leftover evaluations, costing the district about $2,800, he said.

Mundell said the district is still searching for a permanent school psychologist. He also said that the district has continued working with local doctor Kristin Mack in addressing issues like mental health.