Schools

VVSD Security Chief: 'Why Should Our Schools Be Safe?'

The district's head of security talks about Valley View's "moral obligation" to keep campuses safe, and what's being done to protect students.

Valley View School District on Monday released this message, issued by district School Safety Coordinator Leroy Brown:

Schools should be safe because it is important for the process of education to continue without interruptions, without harm, and without danger. It is the best way to make sure our children receive the best education and the best learning process.

It is important for our schools to stay safe for learning to occur. The best way to have an excellent school is to have a safe school. An unsafe school distracts from the learning process. Our schools are being challenged in today’s society. Terrorism has become a new safety concern in our schools nationwide. We have to make sure that parents do not worry about their children and focus on their learning.

Teachers have a big role in the learning process of our children and it is also crucial in the role of safety. The large majority of school safety incidents (weapons assaults, bullying and drugs violations) involves a lack of supervision. One of the first things we have to do is be aware of students under stress, and the problems it could cause for a classroom teacher.

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We as a school district have a moral obligation to keep our schools safe. We do that by putting safety procedures in place that will protect our children. We have to be proactive in our approach to safety. It is all of our responsibilities to keep our children safe…parents, teachers, counselors, and the community at large. We can all help with the physical needs of children on a day-to-day basis. What we see are gang situations, weapons, drugs, truancy, and bullying as a common concern.

Every school needs a safety plan in place that puts to a stop anything that interferes with the process of learning for our children, and anything that could cause death or serious injury and emotional trauma to our students and staff. We all need to have a preparedness plan, to make sure that we’re ready for a crisis in advance.

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We, as a district, have a very important place in the school safety picture, but everyone in our communities needs to become involved as constituents to help drive things in a positive way.

Valley View School District is striving to achieve the goal of providing a safe and secure environment for our students, teachers, and visitors through many avenues. The most prominent is having an effective Crisis Management Plan in place. In VVSD not only is there a district crisis management plan, but each school also has a crisis Management Plan which serves as a guideline in the event of an emergency. Within these plans are detailed protocols to follow for bomb threats, bus accidents, an irate person on campus, death at school, fire, missing person, national emergency, weapons use and much more.

Experience has a way of providing the value of certain training. Our security personnel are trained in the following: chemical agents, handling difficult people, access control evacuation procedures, communication and its significance, liability and legal aspects, observation and documentation, Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation, Automated External Defibrillator, conscious/unconscious choking, Basic First Aid skills, injury prevention, Crisis Prevention Intervention, and public relations.

Though we may never completely eliminate the threat of violence in our schools, our experiences certainly suggest we can prepare with the intent of preventing it from reaching crisis level and completely disintegrating the trust between a community and its school system.



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