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West Islip outlines camera upgrades, blue-light lockdown signs and $1M ask to finish fire-alarm work
Summary
School safety director described expanded camera coverage, license-plate readers and blue-light lockdown signage; facilities staff outlined HVAC, kitchen and playground upgrades and said the board will seek an additional $1 million in a capital-reserve proposition to finish fire-alarm replacements (presentation estimate about $1.88M).
Mr. McAlevey, identified in the meeting as the district school safety director, told the board the district has completed multi-year upgrades to exterior camera coverage and added interior cameras where needed. "In OpenOC, we added 11 cameras, 8 exterior cameras, and we also added 3 interior cameras where we thought were needed within the hallways," Mr. McAlevey said, and he reported Bayview had 11 exterior cameras including a license-plate-reader camera for vehicles.
He said the district repurposed cameras at West High School, is installing blue-light lockdown signage at building entrances to inform visitors when a blue-light lockdown is activated, will expand blue lights to more buildings and plans to add license-plate readers to two West High School access points and a PTZ camera to cover multiple parking lots.
Mr. McAlevey also listed training and equipment updates for the school safety team — CPR/AED and First Aid, New York State security guard annual training, active-shooter training, vendor training with Hanwha camera staff, updated Narcan kits, radios and uniforms.
Facilities lead Mr. Bosse described completed and planned infrastructure work: rebuilt pumps and piping, new fire alarm panels at Beach Street Middle School and Paul J. (transcript spelling varies), replacement of seven rooftop HVAC units at Carnegie and Westbrook, remote boiler and kitchen monitoring, classroom and instructional upgrades (smart boards, flooring), a new pre-K classroom at Westbrook, and kitchen and dishwasher renovations across schools. "We replaced 7 rooftop air HVAC rooftop units at Carnegie and Westbrook," he said.
On capital projects, Miss White said earlier in the presentation that construction costs and code changes left remaining fire-alarm work unfinished and the district seeks an additional $1,000,000 in the May capital-reserve proposition to complete the remaining elementary fire-alarm replacements; the presentation displayed an estimated cost figure referenced as about "1.88" (noted in the slides). Proposed capital-reserve work listed in the presentation includes magnetic door holders at the high school and electronic locks/card access for both middle schools.
Board members and staff framed the safety and facilities work as foundational to daily operations. The district said completed capital-reserve projects are returned to the reserve if under budget; any unspent funds in the new proposition are to be returned to the capital reserve as well.
Next steps: the additional capital-reserve proposition will appear on the May ballot alongside the budget and board trustee items; staff said details and final estimates will be available in the public proposition materials.
