Plans underway for Feb. 28 safety forum

Every district’s top goal is student safety.  It’s a profound but very simple statement that school districts attempt to maintain even though student learning, opportunities, personal growth and so many other characteristics are also important components of what we do. Sometimes, like when our country sadly deals with a school tragedy, these issues are raised to an even higher level of concern and “more” is done to ensure safe days in our schools.  

Hudson City Schools is blessed to have a Parent and Staff Safety Advisory Committee, and our meetings, our agendas, our committees and our execution of events are all based on the safety of our students. We are fortunate to have so many people invested in this area, who prioritize safety and the health and wellness of our students. As we began to meet this year, we also focused on calls to actions – ideas that we wanted to see come to fruition – and we are happy to announce a Safety Forum onFeb. 28. Many details will surface on the event, including all the logistics, but what is important is the design and content of the meeting for our parents and community to hear about the safety items that are important to them. A recent parent survey revealed what our families want to know, and we have a goal of delivering that information to all of you.  

Many of you who visit our buildings already understand some of the safety plans that are in place: locked vestibules, visitor/entrance requirements, practice lockdown drills, visibility of our resource officers, locked doors, etc. We work hard to evaluate each and every component, with a design on safe days for our staff and students. We do this, yet we worry that our parents don’t fully understand all of the components that are in place. That is the reason for our Safety Forum in February. It is an additional manner in which this school district seeks to find a true connection with our families and our entire community.  

Safety knowledge cannot wait for a forum to receive answers, so we hope that all of you reading this will find comfort in contacting us should you have any questions or concerns. We receive them from time to time, and they are always very constructive conversations. A large thank you goes to our Parent and Staff Safety Advisory members who give this district so much time to help in a crucial area. They are physically present for meetings on this topic, but there are additional moments, conversations and thinking that occur quite often. Thanks also goes out to our community, who supports this district in a manner that allows us to consider every measure possible to keep our district safe.  

As always, please feel free to contact us should you have any questions or concerns. ∞