The first of what will be 22 safety and security audits in Valley View School District 365U schools took place Friday at Hermansen Elementary School in Romeoville.
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“For the most part, everything was pretty safe and secure,” said VVSD School Safety Coordinator Leroy Brown who led a team of five examiners that spent several hours at Hermansen.
“There were several minor issues which will be brought to the school’s attention in the next few days so they can be corrected as quickly as possible.”
The examiners went through a state-prepared list of more than 300 questions with school administrators, looking for areas of strength and weakness before spending an hour walking around both the inside and the outside of the building.
Among the items that were scrutinized:
- Overall building security including exits and entrances, the school office, the parking lot, and the playground
- The overall condition of the building including the exterior, hallways, restrooms, computer lab, library media center, walls, ceilings, doors, windows, hallways, and mechanical equipment
- The school’s emergency response plan including the availability of police and fire notification systems, the availability of classroom notification systems, procedures for handling telephoned threats, evacuation and parent re-unification sites, media contact guidelines, and parental contact guidelines
- The availability of all necessary emergency response devices including evacuation maps, fire extinguishers, automated external defibrillators, first aid kits, and emergency evacuation kits
- Bus transportation procedures including daily inspections of the vehicles and verification of driver identities and qualifications (both handled by the VVSD Transportation Department), and safety and security procedures during unloading and loading times
- Parking lot procedures, including fire zones and staff monitoring during arrival and departure time
- Visitor procedures and student pickup procedures during the school day
“We’ll file a short report in the next few days with the school administrators and check back with them in a week or so to make sure they have corrected any issues we may have found,” Brown said.
“We’ll prepare a more formal report that will be presented to the Valley View School Board along with the reports of the other 21 schools, and ultimately it will all be submitted to the state.”
