The Department of Education and the Maine Emergency Management Agency, meeting jointly, identified the following key elements of Mitigation and Preparation that should be incorporated into school Crisis and Response Plans.

These include the following:

* Establish a single point of entry for the school;

* Limit the number of people possessing a key to the single point;

* Utilize an identification system appropriate to the unique needs of individual schools, which vary from very small rural and island schools to city schools of one thousand or more students;

* Require a form of visitor's pass that meets the safety needs of that particular school;

* Train all school staff to effectively address the presence of any visitor who does not have a school-approved visitor pass;

* Consider existing, as well as new, human and fiscal resources in establishing new security measures;

* Inform all vendors and their companies that an identification system is being established in the SAU; and

* Include all events, such as sports events, field trips, and weekend and evening group meetings in the security planning.

Keep in mind that security measures take more time until they become part of the daily school culture. Moreover, principals play a key role in establishing and maintaining a security conscious environment and they need to ask the question: "What makes the students in our school vulnerable and what actions need to be taken to keep our students safe?"

INFORMATIONAL LETTER: 48
FROM: Susan A. Gendron, Commissioner of Education
DATE: November 15, 2006
SUBJECT: Ensuring Safety in Our Schools &endash; Response to Security Concerns and Visitor

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