Dear Parents,

Back and busy!

The Home and School has been sending out reminders about the various activities this week and coming up. Please try to join us for Mother Son Jammin’ Fun or the poker night on Saturday. 

Next week, we will be practicing a lockdown drill as part of the ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate) program. All of the classes have had discussions about this program with age appropriate language. We pray that we will never need to use any of these procedures but discussing it with the children will prepare them and give them ideas about possible responses if they are ever faced with a situation outside of the school building.

Yesterday, I viewed a video put out by the Secret Service on preventing school violence. It reaffirmed what we have known for years; the best prevention against something like this is a caring, proactive, school community. Over and over again, it has been demonstrated that paying attention to warning signs and providing a community that cares, rather that one that is purely punitive, is the best way to avoid a potentially disastrous outcome. One part of this practice is our advisory model in middle school. It is specifically geared to identify an adult community member who interacts regularly and ‘keeps an eye on’ each child. 

We can’t guarantee that nothing will ever happen and we will continue to conduct drills to prepare our students for a worst case scenario. More importantly, we will continue to provide these children with a safe environment where they feel loved and respected. 

Thank you for entrusting these children to our care.