Wednesday, October 10, 2018
Dear OHS Students, Families, and Staff
This past September, I had the opportunity to share procedures and
plans that have been put in place to ensure the safety of the students, staff,
and visitors to OHS. As you may know, the Oconomowoc Area School District
(OASD) follows a safety protocol called ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform,
Counter, Evacuate). This training encourages students and staff to respond to
an armed intruder based on the situation, rather than rely on centralized
instructions in times of crisis.
On Wednesday, October 17, 2018, OHS will conduct an emergency
armed-intruder practice drill. During this intensive drill, local law
enforcement and individuals from our district Building and Grounds Department
will be on hand to help monitor all exercises.
The purpose of the emergency armed-intruder practice drill is to
provide students and staff the opportunity to practice making a well informed
decision if an unsafe and unexpected situation were to happen at school. During
the drill, students will be given information about a fictional armed intruder
and be asked to apply the ALICE framework and decide to evacuate to a rally
point, barricade the classroom or counter/distract the intruder.
The drill will take place at the end of Block B/4th hour and will
occur during the Pride period. Students returning at that time from off-site
locations should report to room 300. Details of the drill are outlined
below.
- Classes
will watch a video that reviews the ALICE framework and outlines the
procedures for the drill. That video is available by clicking here.
- Information
will be shared with the students and then they will need to make a
decision to evacuate, barricade or counter.
- Part
of the training will involve the movement of students and staff do
school-designated rally points. These locations are the identified areas
for them to meet in the case of a school emergency. Evacuation to a safe
area away from our school building ensures that students and staff are out
of harm's way.
- Classes
will then debrief on the experience and fill out a self-reflection form.
As a parent or guardian, you will receive a drill-in-progress
communication from the school that will be sent to the email address on file in
Skyward Family Access while this drill is taking place. Please note, this
will only be a test communication letting you know that a drill is in
progress.
Our primary goal is to ensure the safety of our students and staff
while taking a proactive approach if an unsafe person were to enter any of our
district buildings.
Be sure to follow the Oconomowoc Area School District’s social
media channels (Facebook: @oconomowocschools, Twitter: @oconschools, and
Instagram: oconomowocschools), along with the news updates on the district
website at www.oasd.org. In
the event of an emergency, these platforms will be used to share information
and updates about the situation with families and the community.
As always, please feel free to contact me at CurtisJ@oasd.org with
any questions.
Thank you,
Jason
