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The Weston Public Schools and the Weston Police Department may soon repair what Chief John Troxell has called "holes in communication" between the two groups about what types of school incidents should be reported to police.
At a Police Commission meeting Tuesday night, Troxell said he would meet today with Joann Keating, director of finance and operations for the schools, and Lewis Brey, director of human resources, to discuss policies to make it clear exactly what police need to know.
In a September meeting of the police commission, Troxell said the Weston schools and Board of Education had not reported to police important incidents, such as former bus driver Scott Deicas' transfer out of town and a third-grader bringing a box-cutter to school. Troxell said that even if the incidents did not require police action, police should have been given a heads up. In a school board meeting two weeks ago, Superintendent Jerome Belair and board members defended their actions.
At that meeting, the conversation became heated between the board and Troxell, who said that despite the tension, the two groups have not had an adversarial relationship since then.
The chief said safety is his main concern. "All of these things need to be exposed and talked about and a decision has to be made going forward how we're going to handle these things in the future," said Troxell.
"I am not saying that we need to have zero tolerance and that we need to have storm troopers going up to the schools. That's not our job. Our job is just to maintain safety," he said. "I'm not chastising the school system as a whole. ...What I'm saying is we have to look at the things we have made mistakes on and look at the mistakes that we've made, acknowledge them and move forward."
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