ﾠﾠﾠﾠﾠﾠAs our nation continues to come to grips with the latest shootings at Virginia Tech, I thought I would mention to you that we already had - and continue to have - in place the critical security precautions that I have read about as being recommended in the wake of such horrific violence. We first developed, with professional help, a comprehensive security plan before the Columbine shootings, and have updated it regularly since. Every faculty member has a copy of the plan as well as a quick reference guide, and we review pertinent pieces at various times. We have numerous precautions in place which include emergency plans for various scenarios, locked exterior doors to the school, monitored entrances with recording cameras, an intercom system so that all on campus can be alerted to emerging situations, speakers directed to our public places and exterior areas, and a system that allows us simultaneously and quickly to broadcast email and voicemail messages to all parents. Still, in the wake of these events we have reviewed our procedures and equipment and will fine tune the areas we feel are necessary. This will probably include more drills for our students in the future. Back when we first put procedures in place, however, I learned that there is a prudent, institution-specific balance that must be achieved along the continuum between security and convenient access, between taking reasonable precautions and scaring children.
ﾠﾠﾠﾠﾠﾠThere is no array of security measures that can absolutely guarantee safety from a person intent on committing a heinous act. Yet I think that a small, human-scaled, intimate school like ours offers some critical preventative advantages. Our small class size, close student-teacher relationships, proactive faculty, and environment in which everyone is known as an individual, make it unlikely that a highly disturbed, disgruntled, or asocial person among our usual population would go unnoticed or without significant intervention. Still, we have to take prudent precautions. As a parent here myself, I can comfortably say that is what our approach has been and will always be.