Please take this in the spirit that it's intended...
I attend our school board meetings and watch them making agonizing decisions about what to fund because there is only so much money available. The problem is that most of the items suggested ARE important.
Many of the decisions involve weighing the risks. Security officers, teacher-student ratios, building materials, where the bus routes end, safety equipment on hand, etc.
Maybe monitoring should be a higer priority. But just be aware that to put it there (if not already funded) means some other service will be reduced.
I try to think what I would do in your place. Absolutely I want the kids to be safe. An alarm system and a good plan of action are necessities. Beyond that I don't know. Maybe monitoring is, too. But maybe the school officials, the police, the fire department feel like the status quo is acceptable given we can't always have ideal.
I agree with the others that I would go right to your BOE! I would also check out information on the department of education website for your state. This is a school issue that should be taken care of by state funding...not PTO funds. Good Luck!
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it" - Ferris Bueller
Serendipity, it’s passing inspection because everything is properly inspected and up to date. The alarms do go off if something happens. It’s just if no one it there to make the call, then the call doesn’t get made.
JHB, yes I agree that the bigger issue is why the fire department wasn’t called and why some of the teachers brought their kids back in. I did hear that the safety committee had a meeting with the teachers to discuss the situation. But I feel like as many fire drills as they have every year, there is no excuse in it falling apart like it did. This issue and some other related issues are going to be brought up at our next meeting, but for now I want to focus on why this monitoring isn’t being done.
I called the administration office and found that I needed to talk to the director over the facilities maintenance. I called his office and talked to his assistant and she couldn't tell me anything except he was in meetings all morning and wouldn't be back until lunch. She did get my name and number and told me she would have him call me when he got back.
I waited without getting a return phone call and looked on the website and found the email address of all of the school principals in the school district. I decided to email them directly to see how their school was paying for monitoring, if they were being monitored. I only received three responses and all in the tune of it's too much of a security risk for them to tell me. I took this as they are probable not being monitored. I still haven’t heard back from him.
To answer your questions, mykidsmom, about all of the schools being setup this way, I trying to find out. We are the same school district now, but we had a merger a couple of years ago so it's still a little split, so some of the schools might be setup a little differently. I think that every public school should be asking for this monitoring to be paid for on either a federal or state level.
The school district itself has 4 high schools, 4 middle schools, 2 intermediate schools, 16 elementary schools, 1 alternative school and 1 special purpose school.
Are ALL the other schools set up this way? I ask becasue if everyone has the same system than wouldn't this be something the Principal should be asking the School District Board about?
Aren't we kinda getting into fire codes and city codes too??
How is this PTO related? Your mad as fire and want safety in the classrooms
I'm not sure how various schools handle it - but having a fire alarm that detects smoke and fire or an alarm that can be sounded by pulling the switch is just equipment installed in the school.
Monitoring - having signals sent directly to police/fire - is a separate service, just like you could have an alarm on your house, but no monthly monitoring service.
Monitoring would certainly be ideal - but I'm not sure I agree about the massive safety issue. If the alarm goes off during school - or while there are people in the building - then there are adults present to make the 911 call. If it went off at night when no one was around, then there might be a delay.
The bigger question in my mind is why staff didn't call in the fire.
