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Superintendent Update, January 2006
I hope you enjoyed the holiday season, and got some much needed rest to start the New Year. I stayed in the North Country mostly, but made a quick trip to Syracuse on Christmas Day to be with my wife’s family, and also to enjoy a Syracuse Stage production of The Sound of Music with my wife and six-year old daughter.
In a previous letter, I attempted to update you on safety initiatives taking place in the district. As stated in that letter, this is a continuous process and we are now looking at parking and traffic issues that affect safety. We have contacted the Town of Parishville, the County Highway Department, and consulted with our new School Resource Officer about the possibility of posting “No Parking” signs on School Street, and also two new “Student Drop-off Zone” signs, one at the rear and one near the front of the building. If these “No Parking” rules come to pass, we believe it would not affect our many extracurricular activities. Instead, it will create better visibility, a less congested school traffic zone and parking, and most importantly increase the safety of our students as they arrive at and depart from the school. Please utilize the above mentioned drop-off zones when dropping off or picking up your students from school.
Related to student safety is the issue of Sex Offenders living in the district. There was a level three Sex Offender who moved into our school district just prior to the start of the school year. We were notified by the Sheriff’s Department and immediately did what was required by law, which is to notify all staff, faculty, and coaches who interact with our children. This specific situation was well-advertised, especially in the media, and at the time the school elected not to send out a mailing to district residents or parents of children. This is yet another issue that we will constantly be evaluating to determine how best to protect the students. What I have learned in the process is that there is considerable information that can be easily accessed to make us better informed. For instance, a friend sent me an e-mail link to a web-site, called familywatchdog.com, which is easy to use and quickly provides one with ample information about sex offenders. You simply go to the site, type in your home address, and a map appears with different colored triangles, indicating the present addresses of sex offenders. When you click on these triangles, the sex offender’s photo and other information appears, which can now be released in New York since the passage of “Megan’s Law”. The sex offender registry, which can be accessed at www.criminaljustice.state.ny.us/nsor/search_index.htm, can also provide important information. In the future, we may also consider special mailings to parents of our students in cases where it is deemed appropriate and proper to notify community members.
We have been doing preliminary work on the building of the 2006-2007 school year budget. There will be more concrete information coming when we receive the Governor’s Proposed Budget later in January, but, as has been the norm lately, we are not anticipating a healthy budget or any significant increases in state aid. We will once again be facing increasing costs in health care, retirement, salaries, and special education, to name a few. Whatever your political affiliations are, the one thing that is certain about the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act is that it leaves the states and local school districts with the bill when preparing and scoring all of the new assessments that will be required of all students in grades 3-8. Speaking of the school budget, many people have expressed to me their interest in seeing the school newsletter reinstated. As much as I personally enjoyed the preparation and the completion of the finished product that became each newsletter, it is difficult to justify the high cost of this non-instructional item when we do have other means of communicating the good news and accomplishments of our students, staff, and faculty. We have updated the school web-page thanks to the maintenance efforts of Don Cannamela, our K-12 Instrumental Music teacher who is volunteering his time to improve our site. There is a new Calendar of Events through the remainder of the school year. I will try to do my part by providing an update on a monthly basis. Of course, we can always be reached by telephone at 265-4642 with any questions.
In the near future, look for an exam schedule and supply list for the Jr. Sr. High School. I would like to extend my best wishes for an excellent 2006!
Sincerely,
Thomas R.
Burns
School Safety Initiatives
Tom Burns, Superintendent
I would like to update you on some of the safety initiatives we will be undertaking during this 2005-06 school year. With the passage of the SAVE (Schools Against Violence in Education) act in 2000, the state legislature has placed a great emphasis on safety. Schools are required to have a district-wide safety plan, as well as building-level Emergency Response plans. We are continually updating these plans and will be revising them again this year.
In addition to our annual fire drills, we will be practicing “lock-down” and “lock-out” drills, and conducting table-top crisis scenarios to point out possible gaps in our district responses and plans, so we can improve these areas. Finally, we will be participating in a series of safety audits with Norwood-Norfolk Central School. These audits will allow personnel from each school to lend an objective eye to safety concerns in the other facility. All of this is possible with the guidance and assistance provided by our new School Resource Officer, Trooper Kenneth Plumb. Trooper Plumb took over this fall from our temporary SRO, Trooper Marc McDonell.
Trooper Plumb has been busy giving classroom and auditorium presentations on internet safety, Halloween safety, and stranger awareness. He has also been monitoring and developing a plan for traffic patterns in our parking areas. One concern that has developed this year are vehicles dropping off or picking up students in the North traffic circle in front of the building. Vehicles are pulling in the entrance, then turning around and exiting in the same place, all while buses are parked with red lights flashing, unloading students. This is an accident waiting to happen, and we would ask that when picking up or dropping off your students, please utilize School Street in front of the building but do not enter the traffic circle.
The Capital Project that the district has just finished has also improved our building security tremendously. All of the exterior doors were replaced, and are locked each morning once all of our students have arrived and are in classes. The new main entrance (where the canopy is located in the front traffic circle) is a secure entrance where you may enter a vestibule and then be “buzzed in” by either the elementary or high school secretaries. We appreciate your patience as you are admitted into the building. I understand that it is an inconvenience when compared to past years when you could simply walk into the building, but the intent is to keep the students safe and limit disruptions to the learning process.
Rest assured, we take the safety of all of our
students seriously. In spite of recent occurrences of school violence
nationwide, a great deal of research points to the fact that your children are
as safe on our buses and in school as they are anywhere.