At EHHS, a safe school means students are willing to take chances, be safe in class and extend themselves to be better. According to the National Center on Safe supportive learning, “School safety refers to the measures, policies, and practices implemented to create a secure, nurturing, and positive environment free from physical and emotional harm.”
Some of the people who make EHHS safe are our security staff, School Resource Officer Nicole Burrell, and the EHHS administration team.
Over the summer, EHHS prepares for students to come back for the fall semester by Burrell and the entire security staff as well as administrators prior to the school year started going over everything. Most of the safety and security have been planned for years so they review the efficiency and success of the past procedures and determine if they want to make changes. During the summer months, security and certain administrators also attend training to improve and modify things they think are reasonable.
According to Assistant Principal Anthony Russell: ‘‘Having safe access [to learning] in the building means a lot. Things happen in school that didn’t happen when I was a kid.’’ Overall Mr. Russell shared how much safety in the school means to each and everyone. He explained not having to worry as much as a kid, so going over safety procedures and having training can stand a big part with everyone feeling safe to come into the school.
Monthly by law everyone in the building is contained to do some sort of drills. When ALICE (an enhanced lockdown procedure) had become a thing the teachers were trained to become an open door policy for anybody that might have questions they cover. As all new staff had to do some training over the summer before they start their job. While staff that were already here were trained whenever the school had implemented something new. During this journey they’re just continuous training, whenever there’s changed, or they’re training actually as they put the students through it as well.
Day to day if Officer Burrell or any type of security staff see as things change in the world they all evaluate if any of these school safety policies are effective or not
Some key safety policies here at East Haven High School are fire drills, ALICE, which contains every type of feature of ALICE which is anywhere from lockdowns, barricades, and then also running away out of the area of your safe.
When in an emergency we start with the basics. First we start off with the PowerPoint, we do a lockdown drill then we will add and practice a barricade. Eventually we will even do an evacuation drill so students and staff know how to respond in situations like this.
Overall the staff and administration just want everyone to stay safe and think of this school as a safe place to be.