By Peter Elacqua
Staff Writer
MARLBORO – Students at the Marlboro Middle School and Marlboro Memorial Middle School are learning skills from local emergency medical technicians, police officers and firefighters as members of the Marlboro Public Safety Club.
The club is run by Mitchell Shatz, who is the supervisor of instructional technology for the Marlboro K-8 School District and a volunteer firefighter and EMT in Marlboro.
The Public Safety Club exposes pupils to law enforcement, emergency medical services and firefighting opportunities in Marlboro. The club meets once each month when volunteers from various agencies review concepts with pupils.
Topics of discussion may include police tactics, laws, the duties and operation of K-9 and SWAT units, how to administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation and first aid, the use of a defibrillator, and firefighting and rescue tactics.
According to Shatz, the mission of the Public Safety Club is to instill a passion for public safety and community service in young people while serving as a feeder program to Marlboro’s Police Explorer, EMS cadet and junior firefighter programs.
The Public Safety Club is run through a partnership between the school district and the Marlboro Police Department. It began as a pilot program during the 2014-15 school year at Marlboro Memorial Middle School and now includes 32 pupils, mostly eighth-graders, from the two middle schools.
The club operates with the assistance of School Resource Officers William Pedone, James Ferraro and Frank Perrini.
“We are very proud to have seen this develop from an idea into an active organization that is preparing the future of Marlboro’s finest, boldest and bravest,” Shatz said. “This would not be possible without generous donations of money and manpower from the school district, the police department, the first aid squads, the fire companies and the police unions. We are very grateful for the unique and valuable experience we are providing our kids.”
The club “is very good at teaching students basic skills and about what people do to save lives out in the real world,” said Marc Singer, a Marlboro Middle School eighth-grader. “It is an amazing opportunity, an amazing experience and overall an amazing program. We just finished the police portion and I found it interesting and a potential career opportunity.”
“I think the course is really fun and I get to meet new people and learn new things about police work and the work of emergency responders,” said Olivia Glyptis, a Marlboro Memorial Middle School eighth-grader.
“I was interested during the police unit when an officer brought in a police dog and talked about her job and how she worked with the animals. I would consider that as a career,” she said.
Now that the police and EMT sections of the public safety curriculum have been completed, the firefighting portion will begin later this month. Students will learn about firefighting equipment and observe a person being extricated from a vehicle in which he had become trapped.
“The Public Safety Club has been and continues to be an overwhelming success,” Shatz said. “I know anecdotally from the pilot program I ran two years ago that several of the students who participated have chosen to join volunteer agencies in Marlboro. To me, that is a win. I hope that as time goes on that number increases. Then I will know the club is a true success.”
