The township school district hosted a Parents as Partners event at Centre City Elementary School to explain new developments in emergency response protocols.
All district staff and parents from kindergarten to sixth grade across three Mantua schools were invited by email to attend the Oct. 22 event.
“The district’s Parents as Partners event reviewed … improvements and changes to school security,” said district Superintendent Christine Trampe, specifying a review of Standard Response Protocol (SRP) implemented in schools this year. The protocol organizes tactics for response to weather events, fires, accidents, intruders and other safety threats.
“The development of the SRP was created with extensive collaboration between experts such as first responders, public safety, school, districts, and communities,” Trampe noted. “Its tactics are data driven, researched and based on experience and contemporary practices.”
Also discussed during the presentation was a plan to reunite students with loved ones following an emergency or other school crisis. Trampe then went into detail on her commitment to school security, not just in Mantua, but countywide.
“We have successfully led all public-school districts in Gloucester County to unify in the implementation of the Standard Response Protocol through the I Love U Guys Foundation,” Trampe explained.
“We also created the Gloucester County Reunification Response Team (GCRRT), in which we collaborate with superintendents, school-safety specialists, and police across the county in preparing to respond to a reunification site to reunify parents/guardians with their students following a school crisis or emergency,” she added.
Parents as Partners was also attended by a township police captain and a sergeant from the West Deptford department. The district also arranged for members of Clearview Regional High School’s National Honor Society to care for kids whose parents were at the event.
Trampe described the Parents as Partners presentation as a success and had plenty of praise for it.
“Many parents shared their appreciation for the improvements in regard to school security and the thoroughness and hard work that was evident in the presentation,” the superintendent said.
The next Parents as Partners presentation will be Thursday Jan. 19, at Sewell Elementary School, followed by the last one of the year on Thursday, March 16, at J. Mason Tomlin Elementary School.
