Parents,
Friends, and members of our Northwestern Community,
The Northwestern
School District has scheduled a community school safety forum for Monday, March
19th 6:00PM-7:00PM in the High School Library
The Northwestern School District appreciates the concern, love, and show of support for our administration, staff, and children exhibited by parents and community members. The safety of our children is paramount with the pervasive schools violence and threats across the area, state, and nation.
Below is a summary of current safety precautions that we have
in place here at Northwestern, which are listed on our district website as well
as below. In addition, we have had MARCs emergency radios for a few years
now, we have 99 campus security cameras, three cameras on each of our buses, and we are discussing and initiating several other
new additional precautions as well.
Blessings to each of you and thanks for your prayers, faith,
and your support for everyone protecting our children. Know that we have
an exceptional faculty, staff, and administrative team here at Northwestern who
are dedicated to the learning, development, and safety of children in our
care.
Moving
forward, the district has scheduled a community school safety forum for Monday,
March 19th 6:00PM-7:00PM in the High School Library, which will
immediately precede the 7:00PM Board of Education Meeting that evening. Board Members, Administration, and Sheriff
Dept. representation will be at this meeting as well. The district will be putting together an online survey
that will be available on our website that will be activated by March 15th
to gather and compile
suggestions, ideas, questions, concerns.
I will send a text-alert to the community once this is available.
Please also share
any specific questions or suggestions you might have with your particular
building principal that could possibly further strengthen our security.
If you have further questions or suggestions I would welcome the opportunity to
listen myself, which I will then summarize for discussion with our
administrative team as well as with our Northwestern Board of Education.
Northwestern has layers of protection in place and we have solid protocols for
dealing with emergency situations in each building and district-wide. We
continuously analyze and update these precautions.
A recent
excellent parent suggestion was made for parents to talk with their children
about remaining aware of situations, bullying, or troubled students and to
please remind children to share these concerns and situations with school
adults and their parents. I echo this
and also remind parents to monitor your children’s electronic devices and
social media – to be aware of conversations they are having and with whom.
Another
excellent recent community member suggestion was made for additional peer
supports through a possible training program in order for adults to have a
greater awareness of social media concerns.
The district is moving forward with this suggestion.
Please know
that we are and will continue doing everything in our power to provide a safe
and secure learning environment for our children.
Jeffrey N. Layton
Superintendent, Northwestern
Local Schools
Office 419-846-3151
Cell 330-317-5175
Summary of Current Safety Measures
Northwestern’s
buildings remain secured during the school day. What we have in place has
not changed dramatically, but have become more detailed, evolved over time, and
responses have become more rehearsed.
We pray that no such
cowardly and inhumane violent acts such as what has occurred in Florida toward children
occur in our community.
We also pray that we
have the strength of relationships and awareness of our own children and our
environment to recognize, intercede, and support individual students in crisis
so we can stop any potential self-harm as well.
As far as school
building and district-wide security, we have layers of security that include:
•
Locked doors and windows.
• Numerous
security cameras outside our buildings as well as inside our buildings.
• Security
cameras at the main entrance linked to a buzzer system whereby the doors are
remote unlocked to allow access.
•
Name tags and protocol for visitors and child pick-up.
•
Alice Training. Awareness and training are vitally important.
•
Regular armed intruder drills.
- We have trained
response crisis teams in each building with personnel who have had and annually
undergo restraint training.
•
We have more comprehensive building and district safety plans that are updated
annually.
- We have sought Title XX Grant dollars to fund
Catholic Charities and ANAZAO clinical, individual, and group counseling in our
schools.
•
Added exterior lock boxes with master keys for law enforcement access.
- We worked with law enforcement to mark
exterior doors and mark classrooms from the outside.
•
MARCs Emergency Radios that link directly with the Wayne County Sheriff’s
Department and Local Fire Departments.
•
Wayne County Sheriff Deputies regularly patrol around the school campus and
stop in at varied times.
•
We have also approved specific and trained law enforcement officers to carry
concealed and unconcealed weapons on campus and inside buildings. Only
board members and administrators are in the know of whom these individuals
are. Their identities are kept under wraps for obvious reasons.
•
Obviously on duty law enforcement
officers can also carry their weapons.
•
Since the Florida shooting area law enforcement has stepped-up their school
presence.
- We have long-standing religious education
programs and support prayer groups.
As always, the very best deterrent is many situations is forging and
maintaining strong relationships and communications with staff, students, and
parents; addressing mental health and behavioral issues, dealing with any
bullying behavior immediately, as well as providing additional counseling
supports for students and families as provided with existing staff, Catholic
Charities, ANAZAO, families, and local clergy. Northwestern is blessed
with a strong culture of faith in a very student-centered, nurturing
environment. I appreciate the awareness and relationships we
have of individual students and their needs – through our guidance counselors,
extended counseling supports, administrators, staff-members, and
community-wide.
We
have been discussing security further and we are pursuing the additional
measures below:
- Purchased pepper spray gel for offices personnel
and administration.
- We are putting together training for additional
peer tutoring provided by recent graduates (they can become big bros and
big sisters and stay in tune with student concerns, social media,
etc.).
- Adding another camera in a problem area (our 100th
camera). Note that our security
cameras feed into the offices and can be viewed on various electronic
devices – including cell phone for approved school officials and law
enforcement.
- Researching the costs of adding an additional
MARCs radio to the district office and 4 mobile MARCs radios. (we have 1 base unit in each school building
currently, but adding one in the district office would be a plus as would
having several Marcs mobile units). We are working to find grant
funding for these.
- Educate/remind staff on the locations of fire
extinguishers and other potential defensive items are located throughout
their building.
- Researching software to potentially scan social
media for key phrases, threats, and self-harm.
- Staff undergoing self-defense training.
- Expanded access of our security cameras to
Sheriff Dept. Deputies on their electronic devices.
- Purchasing additional direct intercom phones to
reach the entire building in emergency.
- Add a second inside door lock to classroom doors.
- Glass breakers in every classroom (so teachers
can break windows and escape through them if pinned down and if needed).
- Multi-directional signal booster for the MARCs
radios. These are a lot of money
and we would need to have grant dollars to purchase.
- We are searching for school safety, opioid, or
DARE officer funds, if we can qualify for grant money.
Other
items we are discussing that have come through administrator/staff/community/parent
suggestions include:
- Adding 3M glass coating to the glass at building
entrances.
- Pursue additional funding for school safety that
might include dollars for a resource officer.
- Adding alarms to some of the exits that are not
the main building exits.
- Employ a Resource Officer who is committed to
regular training with our Sheriff’s Dept. or other emergency response
trainer.
- Authorize a few select administrators with CCW and
additional extensive training – Principals, Asst. Principals, and Superintendent
– to keep a weapon in a locked box in case of necessity.
- Purchase small fire extinguishers for each
classroom. Could spray into intruder’s face from long distance to
incapacitate. However, we would need to label these differently so
fire marshal would not require their refill or retagging, or replacement
as our regular ones are.
- Metal Detectors in main entrances (with someone
to monitor them).
- 5 gallon buckets of stones in classrooms to throw
at an intruder.
- Body scan device at the main entrance of each
building ($12,000 each device and someone would need to monitor them).
- Add door alarms to all sub-entrances that can be
visually seen by the office as well.
- Concerned with arming teachers or staff, but it
needs to be a part of the discussion as well.
- Arming secretaries with Tasers.