Current Safety Precautions/Procedures

Our thoughts and prayers are with the students, families, faculty and staff whose lives have been affected by all recent school tragedies. In light of recents events, the safety committee wants to make sure you are aware of the safety precautions that we have in place at St. Paul.

First to go through the precautions we have in place:

• We practice our drills every month to include the Standard Response Protocols (SRP) and fire drills. 

	Hold is the protocol used when hallways need to be kept clear of occupants.
	Secure is the protocol used to safeguard people within the building.
	Lockdown is the protocol used to secure individual rooms and keep occupants quiet and in place.
	Evacuate and may be followed by a location, and is used to move people from one location to a different location in or out of the building.
	Shelter State the Hazard and Safety Strategy for group and self protection.

• We have practiced all the above. We most recently practiced a Shelter/tornado drill on March 7th.
• Part of SRP is the Reunification Drill that we practiced at El Pomar earlier in the year. 
• You can find more information at: https://iloveuguys.org/The-Standard-Response-Protocol.html

• Each month we practice fire drills. We have also added unknown circumstances to include the need to exit from a different location because the hazard might be in their “normal” escape route
• Parish Guard (volunteers that monitor activity at daily mass) check every nook and cranny at the church for potential intruders or safety issues each morning before Mass
• Parish Guard secures doors and stays in the vestibule whenever the school is at Mass
• Staff was CPR and AED trained at the beginning of the year
• We have 2 AED machines in the school
• Our school has 32 cameras on the inside and outside of the school that are monitored from the front office
• Campus doors are locked during the day and visitors need to buzz to enter the building
• An ice machine was recently purchased and is now housed in the PE office and staff lounge for injuries during PE, sporting events, or minor injuries in the classroom
• You were invited to a Parent University in December to update you on the Reunification Drill and answer any questions you had on school safety protocols 
• Officer Bill Walsh, Safety Resource Officer (SRO) at Cheyenne Mountain High School, is on our safety team and is an immediate resource for our school
• We have a partnership with El Pomar, and the Broadmoor Fire Department
• We are a Safe2Tell school
• Staff toured the school and church campus at the beginning of the year to assess and familiarize themselves with the best places to lockdown if necessary, whether at the school, in JPH or at church
• Staff members and the Parish Guard are provided a walkie talkie and staff ID  
• Staff members have been encouraged to act on any safety issues they see. We have talked about “gut instinct” many times
• We debrief as a staff after each safety drill
• There is a weather/lightning alert system in the office
• Playground safety is addressed to include wildlife on the field

• A Memorandum of Understanding is being worked on to communicate the mutually accepted expectations of staff members in the case of an emergency and will include:
  • Communication with parents, the parish office, downtown, police, and fire departments
  • Partnering with substitute classroom teachers. Substitute teachers are welcomed each morning so staff members know there is a guest-teacher in a nearby classroom and will make sure that class is secured
  • Who will open gates for emergency responders
  • Who will partner with first responders when they arrive

The Safety Committee meets monthly and consists of staff members, parish members, parents, staff from El Pomar, and Officer Walsh. We discuss current events and how to best meet the needs of circumstances in our building.

We hope the information above communicates some of the measures we have in place to make sure St. Paul is a safe community where we are all working together to benefit all students, staff and community members. 

We welcome any suggestions and new members. Please email Sandy Rivera at: [email protected] if you would like to volunteer.  Thank you.