School Safety

Safety remains the top priority for both Horizons K8 and BVSD. Every staff member plays an active role through routine drills and ongoing review of policies and procedures, built on BVSD Board Policies, national standards, and best practices — including lessons drawn from after-action reports on incidents nationwide.

Horizons K8's Safety Plans take a proactive approach to strengthening safety and well-being for individuals and the community. Staff engage in ongoing professional development, and students receive instruction and participate in safety drills throughout the year.

Crisis Management Plan

Standard Response Protocol (SRP) 

BVSD has a Crisis Management Plan in place for each school. The plan has five core components.

Prevention

The action(s) that schools, districts, and communities take to decrease the likelihood that an event or crisis will occur by creating a safe and orderly learning environment.  Prevention includes issues of physical and psychological safety.

Protection

The capabilities necessary to secure schools against acts of violence and manmade or natural disasters. Protection focuses on ongoing actions that protect students, teachers, staff, visitors, networks, and property from a threat or hazard.

Mitigation

The sustained action(s) that schools, districts, and communities take to eliminate or reduce the loss of life and property damage related to an event(s) that cannot be prevented in order to decrease the need for response. Mitigation focuses primarily on physical safety.

Response

Maintain trained Crisis Response Teams at the school and district levels which work with Public Emergency Response Agencies. Response Actions (RA): Four key crisis response procedures (Lockdown, Lockout/Secure Perimeter, Evacuation and Shelter) designed to provide consistent, clear, shared language and actions among students, staff and first responders.

Recovery

Restore the infrastructure of the school and return to normal operations as soon as possible. The goal of school recovery efforts following an incident is to resume learning in a safe and healthy environment.

The plan provides staff with procedures to follow before, during and after a crisis situation and provide processes for effective and appropriate communication to maintain student and staff safety.