When an Emergency Occurs
Although your natural instincts in an emergency may be to go to the school to safeguard your child, please understand that doing so could impede the response to the situation. Going to the school may interfere with emergency crews’ and school personnel’s efforts to deal with the emergency. Extra vehicles and people at the site make the task more difficult. Please follow the instructions provided to you through the communication channels outlined below. Please do not come to the school to pick up your child unless requested to do so.
If you arrive at the school in the midst of an emergency, please respect the protocol in progress. While we understand personal circumstances or initial reactions might move you to do something contrary to the school’s established procedures, we cannot compromise the safety of students or staff to accommodate individual requests that could put anyone at risk.
Please DO NOT CALL THE SCHOOL and DO NOT CALL YOUR CHILD’S CELL PHONE. Parents are asked not to call the school or their child’s cell phone during an emergency.
- Phone systems need to remain available for handling the actual emergency.
- Overloading the system may mean the school cannot communicate with first responders.
- Calling your child’s cell phone during an emergency may put them at higher risk by disclosing their location or drawing attention to them during a lock-down.
- Experts advise that under some circumstances cell phones and other electric devices may actually act as an ignition source for fires or explosions.