Clymer Working To Make School Safety Drills More Efficient
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CLYMER -- Clymer Central School has been holding required safety drills throughout the first quarter of the year and has been finding ways to improve.
Principal Brianne Fadale reported to school board members at their most recent meeting about how the safety drills have gone so far this year. Specifically, she talked about a recent relocation drill that she said went better than last year.
"We tried to talk to staff and students beforehand, like 'Hey, let's remember to walk on the side of the road and just be quiet when we're at the bus garage so if we have to give directions in an emergency we can actually hear each other talk,'" Fadale said.
Fadale added that there is always room for improvement. She said the next conversation surrounding relocation drills is going to focus on staying organized while getting back to the building.
Besides relocation drills, Fadale said a lot of fire drills have been held. The other safety drill that still needs done is lockdown drills.
Superintendent Beth Olson said the school has done their first lockdown drill and had a few things come up that require consideration.
"We had a substitute that was in a general bathroom that doesn't lock and she said, 'Well, what do I do?'" Olson said. "If she goes into the hall she can't necessarily get back into the classroom she was just in because they've locked the door. She had a key but we talked about finding the next open classroom because every key will lock the door."
Olson added that while they talked that through they would not have necessarily thought to ask that question because the normal procedure is the "lockdown, lockdown, lockdown" alert goes over the speaker and teachers quickly look into the hall to pull any kids into the room, but the bathrooms are not necessarily checked.
Another lockdown drill question came up when, during the drill, a teacher was in a bathroom that was locked from the inside, but it could be seen that it was locked with someone in there.
"So we could see that someone was in there behind a locked door, but should she be going to a classroom or staying in the bathroom that's locked?" Olson said. "Again, having those conversations that you try to think of everything but until you go through the drill you don't necessarily catch everything."
The code for lockdown drills has also changed. In years past there was a code word such as calling for "Mr. Ireland" over the loudspeaker but then people not normally in the building would get confused if they happened to be there at that time. Olson said that after conversations with law enforcement, they were told to just be direct, so it changed to "lockdown, lockdown, lockdown."
Fadale added that every time a drill happens there is always feedback. For fire drills, a new system has been put in place where each classroom gets a sign with the classroom number on it and when all kids are accounted for they hold up the green side, or if there is a kid missing they hold up the red sign until everyone is accounted for.
"So then the leader just goes to the red, like 'ok, do you have somebody missing?', you know and then they connect," Fadale said. "It's a lot faster than trying to figure out 'I don't even know who I'm checking for' and that's really helped. It's little things like that we are just trying to make it easier and quick."
Fadale said so far the drills for this year have been very smooth.
In other news:
≤ Halloween events have been scheduled in the coming week, such as a staff and student Monopoly game. The Halloween parade is also on schedule for the younger students for the day.
≤ The State University at Fredonia is offering a four-year scholarship to every school in Chautauqua County, which was announced at the CCSPA dinner. The school will receive more details on that at a later time.
≤ The school has received a letter from Sherman Central School in regards to establishing a shared athletic committee.