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School Safety

The Laveen School District has made many preparations to deal effectively and realistically with emergency situations that could occur in or around your child’s school. While we hope that a serious incident never occurs, our goal is to be prepared for any potential emergency. Each school has a safety committee that reviews policies and procedures to enhance the safety and security of their campus. Best practices in safety and security are often reviewed and implemented across the district. Fire, lockdown, and bus evacuation drills are also conducted regularly. Please see the sections below for guidance during an emergency event.

Lockdown

Laveen’s schools routinely conduct lockdown drills to practice for situations in which students and staff should stay behind locked doors for safety reasons. On rare occasions, a school has gone into an actual lockdown. Most often these occur due to active police investigations occurring in close proximity to a school. Lockdowns typically last less than 20 minutes.

Laveen’s highest priority is the safety of its students and staff. Staff has worked closely with Phoenix Police to develop best practices for handling emergency situations.

When a school goes into lockdown the school will:

  1. Secure all buildings
  2. Account for all persons
  3. Communicate pertinent information over the course of the incident

Guidance for Parents During a Lockdown

For our crisis response plan to be effective we depend on you, as parents, to support our crisis response efforts. Your cooperation is vital to helping us protect the safety and welfare of all our students and school employees. Therefore, we ask parents to observe the following procedures related to drills and actual school crises:

Talk to your children: Emphasize how important it is for them to follow instructions by school staff and first responders. During a lockdown, students should quickly move to the nearest safe area, stay out of view, and remain silent (including their cell phone).

Do not call the school: Parents will be notified via text message of a lockdown event (please make sure your child’s school has your current cell phone number on file). The school is unable to answer phones during a lockdown as the telephone system must be available for emergency communications. Additionally, all staff members are working to secure the school and care for the students. Once the school is secure and information is verified, a text and email message will be sent to families. In the event that the situation is resolved before communication can be sent, parents will still receive notification.

Do not come to the school: Once a school is in lockdown, they are unable to open the doors for anyone, including parents. Persons gathering outside a school put themselves at risk, and can delay the emergency response, while police work to apprehend a suspect. Driving to a school during a lockdown can create a traffic jam preventing first responders from reaching the school in a timely manner. In a true emergency situation, students will be relocated to an alternate site for parent reunification.

Check district homepage: An alert message will be posted on the front of the district web page, www.laveenschools.org, along with details and instructions. Text and email messages will also be sent via our auto-dialer system.

School Safety Brochure

Watch a presentation on school safety from the June 2022 Governing Board Meeting (begins at the 34:45 mark).

Read the letter from the Superintendent