Chapman Hill Parents,
Thank you for your support and feedback on our new arrival and dismissal process. The new process has helped get students into and out of the school quickly and safely. We appreciate your patience as we worked out the kinks and refined the process. The new process was suggested by a concerned parent, who worked with our school leadership team and district risk management team to increase safety.
Some of you have shared that you are concerned about allowing your child to walk to class by themselves, so I want to share with you the supports we have in place for your child, as well as the rationale behind the change.
Beginning Monday, September 23rd, we will have trained 4th grade walking buddies in our lobby ready to assist young students to class. The school lobby will be our “good-bye” area for parents who feel their children may need extra support. As in the past, older students will be allowed to walk younger siblings to class. We will also have a team of school staff ready to assist if any child is struggling to say good-bye to parents.
As you are probably aware, we have many safety protocols in place. One gap identified in our security was that we often had people walking through the building after school had started. Not only could this be disruptive to classrooms, it poses a security risk. Classroom volunteers must go through an extensive background check because we want to be sure that people who interact with our students are safe adults. When we allow open access to our school, we put our students at risk. By limiting the number of adults in our building to staff and approved volunteers, we are better able to monitor unusual activity and thus keep our students safe.
We want our school to be a safe and welcoming place. Approved volunteers with pre-arranged volunteering times are always welcome once they have signed in at the office and have a volunteer badge.
Rachael Harms, Principal
