Friday, September 14, 2018
Hello Raccoon Family!
Thank you for all of your support in helping to kick off the new
school year! As we continue to push through the first month of the year, I
would encourage you to reach out to anyone on our staff to ask any questions,
address any concerns, or share a compliment or positive story!
In reflecting on my first few months at OHS, I quickly realized
that many of my communications were reactive to events happening at our school.
This year, I am hoping to be more transparent with our entire community and
from time to time provide proactive communications about what is happening
behind the scenes at our school. This month, I would like to share a little bit
about safety routines and procedures at OHS.
The safety of our students, staff, and visitors to OHS is of the
utmost importance when it comes to creating a school environment that
allows students to focus on learning. As a staff, we have the important
responsibility of being educated and trained to react and respond to an
emergency. However, with that being said, I believe it is just as important to
empower our students to be able to respond appropriately to an emergency
situation. Outlined below are several ways in which we are working to enhance
the safety of our campus and educate our staff and students on proactive safety
practices.
Enhanced Security Procedures/Routines
Over the summer, we have added a few safety measures and adjusted
some procedures from last year. These include:
- Adding
additional lighting and cameras on the pathway connecting Main Campus and
East Campus
- Hiring
a staff member to supervise the transition periods between campuses,
identify students when entering each campus, and patrol parking lots
during the school day
- Assigning
administrators and Officer Parkhurst to supervise students at our
main entrances at the start of the school day
- All
staff members are required to wear badges to identify themselves in the
hall and while working evening activities. In addition, guests are
required to pass background checks and wear a badge identifying themselves
while in our school. This year, we are also asking students to display a
badge to identify that they have permission to be in the halls during
class time.
Student Safety Seminar
After our cookout and rally on the first day of school, our
students were required to participate in a one-hour Student Safety Seminar.
During that time, our students returned to class and reviewed all of the safety
routines and procedures at OHS. This safety tutorial gave us the opportunity to
teach our community about the safety expectations at OHS and allowed for
productive scenario-based conversations. You can see the video by clicking
here.
Schoolwide Drills
As many of you know, the Oconomowoc Area School District has
adopted the ALICE protocol as our response to an active shooter. You can click
here for more information on ALICE. This protocol was introduced in
the Student Safety Seminar and will be discussed and rehearsed at a few points
throughout the year. Last year, our community practiced a barricade drill. This
fall, we plan to have another drill in which students have the opportunity to
think and respond to an emergency situation based on the information provided.
More information will be shared in the coming weeks.
In addition, we will continue to practice our fire drills monthly
and conduct random drills to test our responses to severe weather alerts and
medical emergencies.
Student Safety Commission
Last March, we launched a Student Safety Commission. Together with
Officer Parkhurst, these students helped to plan last spring’s ALICE safety
drill and helped to develop our new evacuation procedures. This group is
getting up and running again and we already have 35 interested students. This
year, the team will continue to plan safety drills, be a leader and voice in
ensuring the safety measures and routines are implemented at our school, and I
am exploring the possibility of them becoming first aid/CPR-certified.
Mandatory Staff Trainings
Our teachers participated in quite a few mandatory trainings prior
to the start of the school year. These include trainings focused on responding
to medical emergencies, medication distribution, cleaning biohazard wastes, and
responding to an armed intruder. As students get older, we need to empower them
to be able to respond to an emergency situation. However, we recognize as a
staff that we ultimately hold the responsibility of ensuring the safety of our
students while at school, on a field trip, or at a school event.
Thank you for your support and please feel free to contact me at CurtisJ@oasd.org if you
have any questions or concerns.
Have a great week!
Jason