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Our schools promote responsibility, respect, civility, and academic excellence in a safe learning and teaching environment. A positive school climate exists when all member of our school community feel safe, comfortable and accepted.
Maintaining safety and security
We all play an important role in keeping our schools safe and secure. The guidelines below ensure safety is always a priority:
|
Staff Members |
Visitors |
Volunteers |
Emergency Procedures |
Supervision |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
All staff members are required to wear identification badges on school property and coloured safety vests while on duty outside or in the school yard. |
All visitors must sign in at the school office and obtain a visitor badge. Let the teacher and office know if you are picking up your child. |
All volunteers must sign in at the school office and obtain a badge. Volunteers must have an up to date criminal background check and comply with the Board's volunteer policy. Volunteers must report directly to the staff member who is associated with their work at the school. |
Each school has specific emergency procedures in place. Students and staff at each school practice emergency procedures for various scenarios that could arise in our school and community. Each school will have a minimum of four fire drill practices in a school year. Each school will practice a Lockdown drill and a Hold and Secure drill each school year. |
To ensure students' safety, parents should be aware of the time teachers provide supervision and ensure that students do not arrive prior to this time. Students remaining at the school for lunch are expected to stay on school property and must have parental permission if they wish to leave school property. |
Definitions
The following words are used to describe emergency procedures in our schools.
Lockdown - is the term used for the resulting school safety response when a major incident or threat of school violence within the school, or in relation to the school or surrounding community has occurred. Interior doors are locked. Exterior doors are locked if it is safe to do so (for example there is no presence of a threat or violence to the staff member responsible for locking the doors).
Hold and Secure - is the term used for the resulting school safety response when there is an ongoing threat to safety or emergency outside and not related to the school. Exterior doors are locked. All interior doors are to remain locked or unlocked in accordance with normal practice.
Shelter in Place - is the term used for the resulting school safety response when there is an environmental or weather related situation where it is necessary to keep all the occupants within the school to protect them from external harm. Exterior and interior doors remain locked in accordance with normal practice.