Safety and Security

Dear Parents,

 

As we continue to monitor our school and others throughout the United States, we endeavor to devote time to reviewing and revising our safety and security policies and procedures. We greatly appreciate your patience as we enforce these procedures and realize that we may sometimes annoy people in order to provide the safest, most secure environment possible for our precious children.

 

Over two hundred seventeen children have been killed in driveways and parking lots since January 1, 2007 in the U.S.  Many of those have occurred in Florida.

 

Our pick-up and drop-off procedures, longstanding at Saint Joseph's, are important and must be observed by our parents. When they are not followed, we have witnessed several dangerous situations for both children and parents.  We remind people to set a good example for their children by: a) following the procedures; and b) being respectful of the teachers or staff members supervising pick up and drop off.  We attempt to be in several places at once, reminding parents of the appropriate places to park, stop, and walk with their children. 

 

We also remind parents of the danger of unauthorized people picking up students without our knowledge, especially as students walked directly to cars in the parking lot. We will continue to remind students and parents of the appropriate procedures, and they are listed below for your reference.

 

Our parking lot is vulnerable to car break-ins, as are the parking lots of our neighboring independent schools. We have employed officers to help us with parking lot safety on many occasions, as well as to provide security on a round-the clock basis for our auctions and other large events.

 

Dennis Hill is here full-time as the Director of Security.  Mr. Hill is here during peak and non-peak hours of activity and events in order to help prevent break-ins, breaches of safety, and theft.  In addition, we must constantly monitor who is picking up our children to assure that no one, without the parents’ express permission, ever removes a child from our care.

 

As is often the case, events over the years, such as the Virginia Tech shooting and the observance of the anniversary of the Columbine shooting, provokes "copycat" threats of violence in area schools.  We would be remiss if we did not take the time and energy necessary to review and revise our safety and security procedures, and to implement best practices immediately.

 

Our Faculty and Staff have met with Adam Golden, the lead officer of security for the Palm Beach County Schools who advised and assisted us as we moved toward being a model campus of safety and security for our students.  We will be reviewing various types of campus drills as well as considering the purchase of equipment that will help us update our already good system.  Other items we will be pursuing are the necessity of checking sexual predator listings on a monthly basis, creating a self-protection team; conducting safety surveys and reviews with students; developing safe habits; creating an emergency telephone tree system and updating it automatically as new families enter the school; and assuring that local fire and police departments are aware of every facet of our campus.

 

The safety and security of our precious children is our utmost goal.  During drop off and pick up of children, it is important to have an orderly, safe, secure progression. It is essential to guard against intrusion, as these are the most dangerous times of day for our children.  We continue to review and revise our procedures as necessary, and we hope we have your cooperation.