Harrison Schools Superintendent Part of Panel Discussion Focusing on School Safety, Security

Former NYPD Commissioner William J. Bratton is slated to be the keynote speaker at a School Safety Symposium on Wednesday in Purchase that will include a panel discussion on school safety and security issues that features Louis Wool, superintendent of the Harrison Central School District,.

The symposium is set for the SUNY Purchase Performing Arts Center, with a 10 a.m. invitation-only session and then an 11:30 a.m. discussion that is open to the public.

The event begins at 9 a.m. with opening remarks by Westchester County Executive Robert P. Astorino, followed by Bratton’s address. From 10 to 11 a.m., three law enforcement experts will make presentations to an invited audience of several hundred educators and law enforcement personnel on Practical Emergency Preparedness for Schools, Assessing Student Threats in Schools and Police Response to Dynamic Incidents in Schools.

 At 11:15 a.m., the public is invited to attend a panel discussion on school safety and security issues. The panel members are: Astorino; Louis Wool, Superintendent of Schools, Harrison Central School District, and president of the Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents; Kelly Chiarella, region director, Westchester-East Putnam PTA; Isabel Burk, coordinator of school safety, Southern Westchester BOCES; Special Agent Maryann Goldman, FBI; and Det. Martin Greenberg, Mount Pleasant Police Department.

The School Safety Symposium is part of Astorino’s Safer Communities initiative, which he announced last week. The goal of the symposium is to provide educators with practical guidance on how to make schools safer and to provide insight into what they can expect from a police response in a major incident or emergency.

To that end, the county Department of Public Safety will also host an outdoor display of tactical vehicles and equipment that would be used to respond to any major emergency at a school in the county.