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The McFarland School District is committed to ensuring our students and staff are safe while in our facilities. In the month of September, each McFarland school reviews with students the protocols and procedures we have in place to ensure our students and staff are safe. Throughout the review, our message continues to be that schools are some of the safest places to be! We continue to remind our students that while these protocols are being reviewed in school, they are lifelong skills and responses that can be used anywhere should a safety concern arise.
This is a brief overview of the multiple components to our safety plans and approach. Here are a few highlights:
- Fostering Safety and Wellness: Evidence-based practices, such as social-emotional learning (SEL), build supportive relationships, teach skills like self-regulation and problem-solving, and create a positive learning environment. These efforts reduce bullying, promote belonging, support mental wellness, and help prevent risky behaviors and future violence. More information can be found on the student services section of the website.
- Safety Drills and Responses to Safety Concerns: Along with many other schools and facilities across the country, the approach we use in the school district should a safety concern arise is called the “Standard Response Protocol” (click here for a description of each response and click here for more information). We have monthly safety drills to practice each response with minimal disruption to the learning that day. Families will be informed of drills via the weekly newsletters. For lockdown drills, families will receive an email both prior to the drill and after the drill. In the case of an actual safety event, families will receive information that day.
- Reporting Safety Threats: Students are taught that if they are aware of a safety concern, they need to tell an adult through the “See Something, Say Something” reporting system. Reports are either directly to a trusted adult or using an online service called SUSO (Speak Up, Speak Out). SUSO reports are monitored 24 hours a day/7 days a week with school staff being trained to respond (click here to see where a report is made).
- Threat Assessment: Our student services staff members, administrators, and the School Resource Officer are regularly trained on how to assess and respond to a threat that is made by a member of the school community to harm themselves or someone else using a well-researched national model (click here for a video with more information).
- Building Security Measures: There are several significant actions that we take to keep our facilities as secure as possible, including secure entry (all other doors locked), screening visitors through a digital visitor management system, communication tools, a camera system, and more.
- Coordination: The district safety teams work closely with the McFarland Police Department as well as village and county emergency services to ensure we are prepared should a safety event occur. Together we have developed an annual training cycle.
- Collaboration: We know that conversations about safety start at home. Thank you for talking to your child about where they can go in an emergency and how to contact you. Making a plan and talking about it often really helps. Here are two great resources: How to Talk With Kids About Tragedies & Other Traumatic News Events and Talking to Children About Violence: Tips for Families and Educators.
Should you have additional questions about school safety, please:
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