Stephen Sweeney on school safety: ‘Sprinklers should be in all our schools’
EDISON – Most New Jersey schools were built before the law required that they have sprinkler systems to put out fires.
And there’s no law on the books that requires local districts to retrofit their campuses.
On a tour of temporary classrooms housing studentsof a school that burned down earlier this year, Senate President Stephen Sweeney said today that that needs to change. Sweeney said he was open to legislation to address the matter.
“Sprinklers should be in our schools, in all of them,” Sweeney said today at James Monroe Elementary School’s temporary location on the Middlesex County College campus. “You can retrofit schools to put sprinklers in them.”
The New Jersey Schools Development Authority hasn’t done a good enough job keeping up with modern technology, Sweeney said. And with Gov. Chris Christie proposing a longer school year, there are a number of upgrades that schools need, including air conditioning on sweltering summer days, Sweeney said.
But the most important thing is safety, Sweeney said, standing in a school corridor as a class of youngsters passed. (Amaral/Star-Ledger)
