16 December 2012
Good morning,
We are all reeling from the news of the elementary school shooting in Connecticut. I am writing to reassure all of our families that student safety always has been and will continue to be a top priority at Oak Grove.
In this weekend's Oak Tree, I reviewed our visitor, arrival, and dismissal policies. As you can imagine, we will be even more diligent moving forward with the enforcement of these. Please do not be offended when we ask you to abide by them.
We do have safety precautions in place that you may not know about....
1) Our exterior doors all lock automatically. We do not have the ability to unlock them. Therefore, they are are locked 24/7.
2) We have 32 surveillance cameras recording inside and outside of our building at all times. We have local and central office access to the video feed and recordings.
3) We have very sensitive fire and burglar alarms which trigger a loud audible alarm and make external contact to a monitoring center in case no one is in the building. These alarms can be triggered manually.
4) We are very lucky to have veteran staff who know and recognize our parents and visitors. When someone comes to the door or enters the grounds of the property who should not be there, we do not hesitate to contact emergency personnel. We approach situations with the idea "Better safe than sorry!"
5) Parents, families, and community members are not allowed to play on our playground/blacktop during school or after-school program hours.
On Monday, we will be reviewing policies and procedures with staff. We will identify gaps in our system. Some items to be addressed include (but are not limited to):
-First week of school drop-off policy
-After-school program safety & dismissal
-Classroom visitation policy
We will make any change necessary to protect our students. Look for a mid-week update from me with this information.
Sincerely,
Dr. Laura Neely, Principal
Oak Grove Elementary |
