What is a School Safety Plan?
At the beginning of each school year, all schools develop a School Safety Plan. The plan outlines the procedures that the school uses every day and in cases of emergency to provide a safe and secure environment in which effective teaching and learning take place. Each plan is approved by the Office of Safety and Youth Development and NYPD. In order to ensure safety for all students and staff, the specific emergency response plans and procedures of the School Safety Plan must remain confidential.
The School Safety Plan addresses the following major areas:
School/Program/Academy Information: This section lists the staff members, hours of operation, chain of command, class schedules, dismissal schedules, extra-curricular activities, and use of special facilities (i.e. swimming pools).
Special Needs Students: This section identifies students with special mobility needs and ways of addressing those needs.
Medical Emergency Response Information: This section outlines procedures for the dissemination of health information of individual students, implementing health recommendations, and for maintaining and accessing health supplies and trained medical personnel. It also outlines the use and storage of Automatic External Defibrillators (AED).
School Safety Personnel Procedures and Assignments: This section includes visitor control procedures, security scanning (where applicable), and protocols for responding to specific disaster or emergency conditions such as fire, sheltering-in, bomb threat, suspicious packages, hazmat, shooting, and kidnapping.
Who is on the School Safety Plan Committee?
Chancellor’s Regulation A-414 requires that the following individuals are required to serve on a school’s Safety Committee: The principal, the UFT Chapter leader, the PT/PTA president (or designee), the school’s Level III School Safety Agent (or designee), the custodial engineer, the dietician (or designee), the NYPD commanding officer (or designee) of the local precinct, and a student representative.
School Safety Agents
School Safety Agents, who are part of the NYPD, work in conjunction with the school administrators to help maintain order and safety. School Safety Agents have the following responsibilities:
Respond to immediate security situations
Help school personnel maintain discipline and order Follow visitor control procedures
Patrol areas within and immediately surrounding the school building Prevent intruders from entering the school building
Report serious incidents to the school administration and School Safety Division
Respect For All (RFA)- Our liaison is Michael Buckley.
What You Can Do About Bullying…
…If Your Child is the Target
Report the incident to your school's Respect for All (RFA) liaison(s) and/or school administration.
Ask for the incident number from school administration for follow up. This is also known as Online Occurrence Reporting System (OORS) number.
The school will investigate and must tell the parent or guardian of the target what they find. If needed, the child may be referred for support services.
If the investigation finds that a student—or students—have been bullying or harassing your child, the school will follow the process described in the Discipline Code.
Discipline Code
The discipline code encourages schools to develop proactive strategies in addressing the social emotional needs of students. For each behavior infraction the school as a number of recommended interventions that range from conferences with a counselor to classroom removals. At PS.154, we believe that a combination of social emotional learning in the classroom, proactive planning for more intense behaviors and a menu of logical consequences will help to create a safe learning environment for all.
Mandated reporting (Child abuse)
All NYCDOE employees are mandated reporters. If a staff member has concerns about the safety and welfare of any child they are legally responsible to call the Administration for Child Services (ACS). Once a report is initiated ACS will either take the case or make recommendations to the school
Cell Phones
Students are permitted to bring cell-phones to school. Please read through our policy and return the signed contracts.
General Response Protocols (GRP)-
All NYCDOE schools are required to perform evacuation drills, lock down and missing student drills throughout the year. The GRP description page is attached.
Transitions in the building-
When travelling to and from the bathroom, water fountain, nurse’s office or any other location within the school K-2 students are always in pairs or threes. Students in grades 3-5 will travel alone but with a hall pass.
Door Alarms-
All exterior doors have alarms. Staff are assigned times to check that door alarms are activated periodically throughout the day.
Double Parking
Please don’t double park. Blocking the sidewalk creates a safety issue for kids crossing the street and school buses getting close enough to our school for kids to enter/exit without having to walk in the street.
