2018-03-02-BRIDGE-min - Laserfiche WebLink

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BRIDGE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SCHOOL-BASED SITE COUNCIL 55 Middleby Road, Lexington, MA 02421 781-861-2510 MARCH 2, 2018 MEETING MINUTES APPROVED JUNE 1, 2018 PRESENT: Lynnette Allen, Megan Brown,Amelia Brower, Lucia Brower, Erin Cerat, Meg Colella,Jon Cunha,Allison Gullingsrud, Kimberly Hensle Lowrance,Amy Kvaal, Ruth Litchfield, Zeba McGibbon, Deirdre Schadler, and Shawn Wood. ABSENT: Kristen Gray, Huan Liu, Beth Murnaghan, Debbie Side, and Melanie Tanionos. MEETING SUMMARY: Meg Colella, Bridge Elementary School-Based Site Council Chair (SBC), led the meeting, which began at 8 AM in the Bridge Elementary School Library. The meeting began with the approval of the December and January meeting minutes. Next, Ms. Colella began a presentation on the physical safety of students and staff at Bridge, a topic that had been requested from discussion by SBC members a few months ago and which is now even more critical after the rise in school shootings in our country. She referred the SBC to her recent newsletter (see https:://www.smore.com/yx8mt) in which she updated the community about safety at Bridge. For a while now, Ms. Colella has been leading the Bridge staff in a series of trainings and simulations designed to prepare them for an emergency, such as an active shooter in the building. These trainings have been held with the cooperation of the Lexington Police Department, and are part of the district's efforts to get the staff familiar with ALICE protocols.ALICE—which stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate—is a strategy designed to help staff respond quickly and appropriately in an emergency. Its goal is to minimize fatalities. Ms. Colella, as a certified ALICE trainer, explained that people used to believe that sheltering in place was the best strategy in an active shooter situation,but research - especially after the Virginia Tech shooting—has shown that it is, in fact,the worst decision. People should be empowered to make the decision that is best for them, depending upon where they are located. Therefore,ALICE gives staff the tools to make a decision,without waiting on guidance from the principal or another school leader. The A in ALICE stands for alert. The goal here is to let as many people as possible know what is going on during an emergency. To that end, Bridge staff can send an alert from anywhere in the building to the rest of the building, and they have been directed to be as detailed and explicit as possible. For example, staff wouldn't say"code red," instead they would say"there's a shooter in the cafeteria." This gives the rest of the people in the 1