SK Schools Re-Affirm Emergency Protocols

The following letter was sent to the South Kingstown schools listserv.

Crisis Response Plan Communication to Parents

In light of the recent event at URI, we are taking this opportunity to review district crisis protocols with parents and staff.

LOCKDOWNS

Although yesterday the South Kingstown Police confirmed that there was no threat to schools and we did not need to “lockdown” our school buildings, there may be times in the future when a “lockdown” is necessary to help ensure student safety.

We understand that communication from the media will most likely go “viral” before we can confirm the accuracy of the information and communicate to families. When parents hear about a crisis in or around schools they will certainly become concerned. Hearing that your child’s school is in a “lockdown” will likely heighten that concern.

We realize that parents are ultimately concerned for the safety of their children as are we. There are two reasons that a school may be in “lockdown”

• If there is not a direct threat to the school but there is a neighborhood concern, the police and/or district may advise the school to “secure the perimeter” and not permit outdoor recess for young children or off campus activities. In this scenario, parents may be permitted to pick up their children as they typically do, although there is not necessarily a need to pick up children early. In this scenario phones will be answered.
• If there is an event actually occurring at the school, and the school is in “lockdown” and the police have secured the perimeter, no one (even parents) is allowed to enter the building and phones will not be answered. We will provide information in as timely a manner as possible to try to alleviate parent concern. We will relay information through the typical School Messenger Alerts as we do with the cancellation of school. When the threat to the school has been neutralized the reunification plan will be communicated to parents.

Although we know that communication is of the utmost importance to parents, student safety must be our primary concern and we ask that you help us in our efforts to run our emergency procedures as effectively as we can.

UPDATE YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION

It is essential that we maintain the most current contact information for you (including multiple numbers for multiple contacts). Please take the time to update your contact information as it changes to ensure that we are able to reach you in the event of an emergency.

It is also essential that you confirm the manner in which you would like to receive our emergency alerts. Please understand that some emergency alerts happen during school hours. Please provide a contact number or email where you can be reached during the day.

POST INCIDENT CONFERENCE

As a part of our district crisis plan, crisis team leaders Jennifer Enck and Kevin Cronin assembled our district crisis team at 7 a.m. this morning. Every school and district leader was represented as well as our community partners (the South Kingstown Police and Fire departments).

Follow up school crisis team meetings will occur in every school over the next few days.

We enact a post incident conference to learn from our incident experience in order to make our district protocols even more effective. By coordinating our communication efforts and safety protocols we can ensure the highest level of safety amongst our schools.

THANK YOU TO STAFF

Thankfully the event that transpired at URI yesterday was solved without incident. It is important to know that we have nine schools and one of our schools (Independence Transition Academy) is located on the URI campus.

Upon receiving word that a situation was occurring on campus, a team of district staff including the Special Education Director and Assistant Director, Chief Financial Officer and I immediately deployed to the site to ensure the safety of our students on campus.

We are grateful to district staff (crisis team leaders, principals, teachers and support staff) for their ability to effectively run an emergency procedure in the schools that were not directly involved but were still affected by the impact of the situation.

Although we are hopeful that this is a unique situation, we acknowledge the need to always be prepared in the event of an emergency.

We thank you for your patience and your trust.

Sincerely,

Kristen Stringfellow, Superintendent