In a conversation with a parent as buses arrived in front of the school, the discussion turned to school safety. As the 410 students passed through the front doors, I knew the parent was looking for assurance that the children were going to be safe in our hands.
Along with wearing my “Principal” hat, I am also a member of the District’s Safety Team. I know what the school and district routinely does to assure that all our students remain safe, but it was never something that we routinely shared with parents. When parents send their children to school, or drop them off in the parking lot, they are entrusting their most special possession into our hands. Not only is it our responsibility to provide a learning environment in which they develop and grow their reading and math skills, but of equal, if not more importance, a safe environment for this to happen.
Although the most observable safety activity that we do at school is a fire drill, which we are required to complete eight times during the school year, it is only one small part of student safety.
- Each school building is required to complete eight fire drills annually. The goal of a fire drill is to safely and quickly evacuate all students and staff out of the building. Exiting students out of the building is only one half of the process. Once outside, the important task is to then communicate to the many locations outside of the building to account for all students and staff members.
- A “lock down” procedure is used to secure all occupants of the building if there is potentially an unsafe situation within the school. We are required to practice this drill four times each year. Parents should be reassured that, within a matter of seconds, teachers have a routine to secure their students.
- Once our school day begins, all exterior doors are locked. The only entrance for visitors to the school is through a secured vestibule that requires them to be identified and then signed in before allowing through the locked entrance.
- A “keep out” procedure is used when there exists a harm in the outside vicinity of the school. All exterior doors remain locked and no entrance or exit is allowed until we are assured that no danger exists.
- Table Top drills are conducted in each school building with the assistance of the Massena Police Department. These drills force key school personnel to respond to a variety of safety incidences and then use professional feedback to refine the responses.
- Evacuation drills are conducted to assure that the school can quickly and safely move everyone to an alternate site if necessary.
I am sharing this information with you now because of that simple conversation with that parent at the beginning of a school day. I hope that I was able to allay her concerns for her children’s safety. I also hope that I have been able to provide you with more insight about how serious we take school safety.
