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Safety a priority at Greenville City Schools
By Jeffrey S. Cassell, GCS Director of Administrative Services
Safety is now always a concern for schools, staff, students and
parents. There are districts, business, and venues in the news
many times a year. We do not want that to be here in
Greenville. So, as a district we take steps to protect our
students and staff.
Staff and students are trained using the ALICE system. ALICE
stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate. The
order of use of this system is dependent on the situation at
hand. Staff and students practice these techniques each year and
discuss the best use of these strategies. School districts in the
State of Ohio are required to complete drills each year and report the
activities to the Ohio Department of Education (ODE). School
districts are also required to evaluate their Emergency Operations Plan
(EOP) annually and rewrite the complete plan every three years.
Our plan was successful approved by the ODE on February 10, 2019 and
the Greenville City School Board approved the plan on February 21,
2019. The plan was a united effort with the school district,
Greenville City Police and Fire Departments and the Darke County
Emergency Management Agency.
In addition to the plans, each building, is required to practice one of
three types of drills (tabletop, functional, or full scale) with help
from local agencies. These drills allow for staff and students to
not only practice the EOP, but discuss the outcomes of the drill and
better ways to address different situations.
In addition to having an active practiced plan, Mr. Doug Fries has
invested into School Resource Officers (SRO) and more counseling over
the past three years. These extra services allows the district to
respond to student needs before a crisis or to minimize the
crisis. There is a SRO in each building working with students,
staff and administration. There was an additional counselor added
to the K-8 building for support and more counseling services provided
by Recovery and Wellness at both buildings.
“We are Majority” is an organization in both buildings that focuses on
a drug-free life style and the students are actively participating in
events to show the support for this type of life choices. Many
times substance abuse can lead to poor choices regarding safety issues.
The school district, besides using General Funds, have participated in
grants through the Ohio Attorney General’s Office and Bureau of
Worker’s Comp (BWC). These grants have helped the district to
fund ALICE training for staff, Stop the Bleed kits for classrooms,
secure entrance systems for the buildings, and additional camera
systems and cameras to help with security.
Presently, Memorial Hall, Administration Office, is not a secure
building at this time, but plans are being made to accomplish this in
the near future. Twelve cameras were just added for security
protection, but a secure entry system will be put into place.
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