Superintendent Mazzi responds to Connecticut school shootings

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

Big Wal­nut Local School Dis­trict Super­in­ten­dent Steve Mazzi attended last Wednes­day evening’s Sun­bury Vil­lage Coun­cil meet­ing to thank coun­cil mem­bers and the Sun­bury Police Depart­ment for added police vis­i­bil­ity dur­ing the days fol­low­ing the mass shoot­ing at Sandy Hook Ele­men­tary School in New­town, Connecticut.

Over the week­end fol­low­ing the shoot­ings, and because of the sud­den fears both locally and nation­ally about the ease of school access and stu­dent safety, Mazzi con­tacted Sun­bury Police Chief Pat Ben­nett to ask for offi­cer vis­i­bil­ity at each of the dis­trict schools inside Sun­bury, before and after school hours and also through­out the day.

“We were all shocked and sad­dened by the events of last Fri­day in Con­necti­cut, but we want every­one to know what a great com­mu­nity this is,” Mazzi said to coun­cil mem­bers. “Three phone calls – to Sun­bury Mayor Tommy Hat­field, to Sun­bury Police Chief Pat Ben­nett, and to Delaware County Sher­iff Russ Mar­tin – brought a level of col­lab­o­ra­tion in a time of need that is part of what makes this com­mu­nity so special.”

In a let­ter to par­ents of stu­dents and mem­bers of the com­mu­nity posted on the school dis­trict web­site, Mazzi said the school dis­trict is con­stantly review­ing safety and secu­rity pro­ce­dures, prac­tic­ing drills and work­ing closely with local law enforce­ment agen­cies to revisit safety pro­ce­dures on an ongo­ing basis.

In a sep­a­rate let­ter sent home with stu­dents on Mon­day, Decem­ber 17, Mazzi said the Con­necti­cut shoot­ings are a stark reminder of the impor­tance of safety pro­ce­dures and check-in and screen­ing processes for all vis­i­tors to Big Wal­nut schools.

“Our par­ents and com­mu­nity are our part­ners in secu­rity and we appre­ci­ate your sup­port when vis­it­ing our build­ings,” Mazzi wrote. “One of the most impor­tant ways you help us is to take the time to sign in and to wear a badge at all times when in the build­ing. As a staff, we will be wear­ing our badges and we will be approach­ing every­one with­out a badge.”

Cur­rently, Mazzi wrote, all school build­ing doors are locked and acces­si­ble only by key or fob except for the front doors, and vis­i­tors must use these front entrances and check into the office imme­di­ately upon arrival when vis­it­ing dis­trict schools.

Mazzi said the dis­trict has been dis­cussing solu­tions to all of the district’s build­ings main entry point archi­tec­tures and will be meet­ing with an archi­tect to eval­u­ate each build­ing. He said the dis­trict is assess­ing buzz-in sys­tems and even poten­tial remodeling.

“Each of our school build­ings has its own, per­son­al­ized Emer­gency Oper­a­tions Plan that details pro­ce­dures to fol­low in case of an emer­gency — fire, tor­nado, bomb threat, earth­quake, flood, intruder,” Mazzi wrote. “It includes respon­si­bil­i­ties of per­son­nel, med­ical responses and lock-down procedures.”

Mazzi said each dis­trict school build­ing annu­ally reviews and updates its Emer­gency Oper­a­tions Plan with the help of local law enforce­ment offi­cials, and safety drills are con­ducted through­out the year to ensure staff and stu­dents have the oppor­tu­nity to prac­tice emer­gency responses and improve procedures.

“In addi­tion to tra­di­tional emer­gency drills, we con­duct safety drills, such as lock­downs that are designed to ensure the pro­tec­tion of stu­dents against acts of vio­lence such as ter­ror­ism and the pres­ence of weapons in a build­ing,” Mazzi wrote. “We will be con­duct­ing our next lock­down drill upon return from win­ter break. We men­tion this to make sure that stu­dents and par­ents are not duly alarmed.”

Mazzi also noted that build­ing admin­is­tra­tors and staff also par­tic­i­pate in safety train­ing ses­sions that allow them to imple­ment the best safety prac­tices in their schools; and dis­trict admin­is­tra­tors work with local law enforce­ment offi­cials to ensure that the dis­trict imple­ments the best prac­tices in school secu­rity and is in com­pli­ance with the State of Ohio’s safety man­dates and cri­sis response preparations.

To read the com­plete text of Steve Mazzi’s let­ter to Big Wal­nut par­ents go to the school dis­trict web­site at < bigwalnut.k12.oh.us >, at the bot­tom of the page click “View News Archives”, then scroll down and click on “Safety and Secu­rity Mes­sage From Mr. Mazzi 12–17-12”.

Posted by Gary Henery on Dec 26 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.