Wayland Superintendent Responds To New School Safety Report

WAYLAND, MA—Each year, Wayland schools renew their safety procedures, Superintendent of Schools Arthur Unobskey said.

"I thought it made sense to do the same with parents," he told Patch.

In a letter to the community, Unobskey detailed an update on the safety procedures at the Wayland schools, prompted by a report from the U.S. Secret Service this summer called “Enhancing School Safety Using a Threat Assessment Model: An Operational Guide forPreventing School Violence.”

"Providing a safe environment for your child to learn and to grow is a top priority of the Wayland Public Schools," began Unobskey. "Most importantly, the Wayland Public School staff works to create a warm environment in which every child is noticed and supported. In this way, we hope that all of our students will feel a sense of belonging and empathy every day they go to school and will trust our teaching staff. We strive to teach them the skills they need to identify when they or a classmate is struggling."

Unobskey said that the schools offer a "robust" set of programming through a program called Open Circle at the elementary level, TAG at the middle school level, and Advisory in the high school to strengthen children's ability to develop healthy relationships with peers. At the secondary level, through certain programs, such as Signs of Suicide, students learn about mental health challenges and supports that are in place for their classmates and themselves, he said. The community program Wayland Cares also lends a hand to students who are struggling.

"Finally, a Threat Assessment Team at each building composed of the school principal, school adjustment counselor, school psychologist, and other teaching staff works closely with the Wayland Police," he wrote, "and in particular our School Resource Officer, Shane Bowles, to ensure that concerns about students are surfaced, discussed and addressed. At the same time, while an attack is extremely unlikely to occur, we prepare our students and staff to respond in such an instance. Officer Bowles and the Threat Assessment Teams follow the ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate) system, developed in response to the latest research regarding school violence. ALICE enables teachers to make decisions regarding staying in the classroom or evacuating depending on the location of an intruder."

Unobskey said that staff and students participate in ALICE drill trainings twice a year.

This fall, the Wayland Police Department has increased its presence at the schools, according to Unobskey, and in 2019-2019 Wayland is making significant upgrades to the public address system "to ensure that staff and the police can communicate as quickly as possible during an emergency."

Photo via Wayland Schools