Safety Addressed for Potential Twilight Program

While the school district is in the process of applying for a grant that would allow the district to offer an alternative, after-hours high school program to students who live within a 15-mile radius, one borough resident asked the district also consider increasing security measures should the grant be approved and the district move forward.

The resident questioned the program during the meeting Monday after first reading about the district's consideration of the "twlight school" on NorthJersey.com.

Read the article from the Suburban Trends here.

He asked Superintendent Mario Cardinale to explain the program and if enhanced security, through additional presence or any other means, would also be considered while the district is considering allowing non-Butler residents to attend the school. Cardinale said would be open from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. three days a week for the students to come in and be taught by one teacher and with one aide. The other two weekdays, the students would be encouraged to participate in internships or work-study programs and continue to be supervised by the teacher.

The Inter-district School Choice (IDSC) grant the district is applying for through the state Department of Education would fund the initial investment for the digital curriculum for the program and Cardinale said the district is hoping to hire a private company to come in and run the program. The school district would not be investing any of its own dollars, he said.

The program could have as many as 50 students, Cardinale said, with students typically having dropped out of school from their own districts for various reasons.

"There is a market for (the program) because of the dropout rate in the state," Cardinale said.

But this also raised a question of whether dropout and graduation rates from the program would be factored into the district's statistics. Cardinale said they are hoping they would not.

"We're looking at the option to treat it as a school within a school, as in a separate entity," he said.

When addressing the security concerns, Cardinale said the district is taking into consideration enhanced custodial presence and that with the district's new surveillance system, the district will be able to better ensure safety, although he noted that no system can provide total safety.

"In the world we live in, it's sad to say, there is no iron-clad guarantee," he said.

But Cardinale assured the resident that the students will go through a screening process before being selected for the program and that the intent is really to help students who can better succeed in this type of environment.

"Are we looking for students who are unable to succeed in a traditional high school setting? That's more of our focus," he said.