Metro

Armed guards in Jersey

MARLBORO, NJ — Kids in one central New Jersey town returned to classes yesterday to find armed, uniformed cops stationed at their schools in reaction to the Newtown massacre.

The move to put an armed officer at each of the eight elementary and middle schools in Marlboro Township met with mixed reaction, with some parents praising the beefed-up security and others blasting it.

“It feels safe after what happened in Connecticut,” said Despina Markos, whose son John is a third-grader at Marlboro Elementary. “I like the idea. You never know what kind of sickos are around.”

On the district’s Facebook page, some residents derided the move as “a band-aid approach” to larger gun- control and mental-health issues, and ripped the town’s Board of Education for not soliciting public input.

The board made its decision at a closed-door meeting last Friday.

“There are many parents who strongly object to this measure,” Steve Rollins railed in a Facebook posting.

“Implementing it without public hearings is irresponsible . . . the mayor and the BOE should be removed for putting guns in our schools without first bringing this to a public discussion.”