November 28, 2017

Hello Grant School families. This is Mr. Freeman and I wanted to reach out to our parents and let you know what our district is doing to ensure the safety of our students, staff, and our campus. Safety is always our top priority at Grant but, given recent events, we are committed now more than ever to do everything we can to help our school be safe. Our hearts go out to the community of Rancho Tehama in the wake of the recent school shooting on their campus. I want to reassure our Grant School family that all year long we have been actively working with staff and stakeholder groups through our Site Council and our School Board to evaluate our safe school planning. Prior to the Rancho Tehama incident, we had scheduled a lockdown drill for tomorrow (November 29th). We have had some discussion whether to cancel the drill in light of recent events, but we do feel that part of our preparation is in the practice and we would like to continue with this lockdown drill.  We will have law enforcement representatives participating with us to take a look at our systems and procedures to make sure that in the event of an emergency we are doing those things that will help our kids be safe.

We would also like to invite parents to be a part of our safe school planning process. Our next Safety Committee meeting will be January 9th at 9:00 am. This committee will be reviewing our notes from the lockdown drill as well as looking at all of our Safety Goals and our procedures for things like evacuation, active shooter, and fire drills. We are also working the District Attorney’s Office to address bullying and student safety online.  Part of these plans include hosting a parent event in the evening to share expertise and strategies so that we can partner with you to keep our kids safe. Stay tuned for the details on that event.

Thanks for trusting us with your students. We take that responsibility very safe. As always, if you have questions or suggestions to help us improve safety at Grant School, I would love to hear from you. Let’s expect the best. GO COUGARS!