Keeping Everyone Safe at Sanborn
Dear Parents in the Sanborn Community,
As many of you already know, today my administrative staff and I placed the school into a lock down while we worked with local law enforcement on a potential safety concern on our school campus. While I am not in a position to share with you the details of this safety concern, I do want to take a moment to thank all of you for your cooperation during today's incident and share with all of you some information regarding school safety in general.
First and foremost, I want all of you to know that our school has a comprehensive crisis management plan that we use anytime we have an issue that could threaten the safety or well-being of people in our building. For security reasons, the details of that plan cannot be published or shared with the public. Our teachers and students have a set of "need to know" procedures that they follow as they are directed to during a crisis. We are very fortunate at our school to have a school district that is very supportive of emergency planning and staff training. Our staff regularly receives training with the emergency plan. We practice fire and lock down drills regularly. We work diligently with the police and fire officials in Kingston and the surrounding communities.
On a day like today, our training and preparation was put to the real test. Staff and students responded exactly as we needed them to. The police were able to do what they needed to do in an efficient and timely manner. At no time did I or any of my administrators feel as though we had lost control over the situation we were dealing with. When the incident was ready to come to a close, we had a central message ready to be communicated with all staff, students, and community members with all of the information we could share about the incident.
If I could ask just one favor of you as parents during a crisis situation, it would be this: As hard as it is, please refrain from trying to text or call your children on their cell phones. Our staff are trained to do what they can to keep students off their cell phones. As a parent myself, I get why you would have an urge to "check in" with them to make sure they are OK, but you doing that can create issues for both school staff and emergency responders. Students on phones spreading rumors and opinions about the crisis situation make it extremely difficult for us to keep order in the classrooms and keep the lines of communication open so that we can quickly and efficiently address the safety concern and return the school to normal operation.
Today, your children were safe. Tomorrow, we will keep your children safe. A week from now, a month from now, and a year from now, we will still keep your children safe at Sanborn. That is the promise that my staff makes to all of you. Thank you for trusting us to make the tough decisions that we sometimes need to make in order to keep that promise to you. Thank you for trusting us when you hear something on the news about our school that we will share with you any and all information that we can about the incident once it is appropriate. Thank you for supporting us in any way you can when we ask you to. It takes all of us to keep our kids safe, and we take that job very seriously.
As many of you already know, today my administrative staff and I placed the school into a lock down while we worked with local law enforcement on a potential safety concern on our school campus. While I am not in a position to share with you the details of this safety concern, I do want to take a moment to thank all of you for your cooperation during today's incident and share with all of you some information regarding school safety in general.
First and foremost, I want all of you to know that our school has a comprehensive crisis management plan that we use anytime we have an issue that could threaten the safety or well-being of people in our building. For security reasons, the details of that plan cannot be published or shared with the public. Our teachers and students have a set of "need to know" procedures that they follow as they are directed to during a crisis. We are very fortunate at our school to have a school district that is very supportive of emergency planning and staff training. Our staff regularly receives training with the emergency plan. We practice fire and lock down drills regularly. We work diligently with the police and fire officials in Kingston and the surrounding communities.
On a day like today, our training and preparation was put to the real test. Staff and students responded exactly as we needed them to. The police were able to do what they needed to do in an efficient and timely manner. At no time did I or any of my administrators feel as though we had lost control over the situation we were dealing with. When the incident was ready to come to a close, we had a central message ready to be communicated with all staff, students, and community members with all of the information we could share about the incident.
If I could ask just one favor of you as parents during a crisis situation, it would be this: As hard as it is, please refrain from trying to text or call your children on their cell phones. Our staff are trained to do what they can to keep students off their cell phones. As a parent myself, I get why you would have an urge to "check in" with them to make sure they are OK, but you doing that can create issues for both school staff and emergency responders. Students on phones spreading rumors and opinions about the crisis situation make it extremely difficult for us to keep order in the classrooms and keep the lines of communication open so that we can quickly and efficiently address the safety concern and return the school to normal operation.
Today, your children were safe. Tomorrow, we will keep your children safe. A week from now, a month from now, and a year from now, we will still keep your children safe at Sanborn. That is the promise that my staff makes to all of you. Thank you for trusting us to make the tough decisions that we sometimes need to make in order to keep that promise to you. Thank you for trusting us when you hear something on the news about our school that we will share with you any and all information that we can about the incident once it is appropriate. Thank you for supporting us in any way you can when we ask you to. It takes all of us to keep our kids safe, and we take that job very seriously.
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