St. Mary’s County Public School’s Community: I write to you with a heavy heart and on behalf of the Board of Education of St. Mary’s County. Words cannot fully describe our feelings about the horrific events that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012. We want to assure you of the proactive steps, procedures, and protocols our school district has in place to prevent and, if necessary, respond to a similar occurrence. We have implemented every conceivable and reasonable measure to prevent any such occurrence in our schools. Our approach to preventing campus violence is simplistic yet multi-faceted, and remains clearly rooted in the “lessons learned” by others who have had to deal with similar unfortunate acts of violence on school campuses in other states.
Communication is the first and most critical component in our prevention efforts. In many previous incidents communication and the lack of communication within a community are cited as the single most critical factor that may have contributed to stopping campus violence. In almost all prior cases, there was someone within the community who possessed information or suspected an abnormality and failed to report what they knew or suspected to authorities who, in turn, could have taken preventive actions. Through this letter, I am strongly encouraging anyone who suspects or knows any information of concern to please report it. Please allow us the opportunity to work with the authorities to investigate and determine the validity of the information.
There are many ways to report any suspicions or concerns. You can report information by phone or e-mail using school channels that include your student’s site administrator, the central administration offices, and the St. Mary’s County Public School’s (SMCPS) Confidential Reporting Hotline by calling 301-475-4256, extension 150 or 188. You are not required to leave any personal information and can remain completely anonymous if you use the hotline. You can also contact the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office or the Maryland State Police. We have an excellent working relationship with law enforcement authorities and information reported is investigated immediately through our established partnerships.
Our law enforcement partnerships are highly proactive and extend far beyond investigations. We have worked together to create many prevention-focused initiatives to include the school resource officers assigned to all secondary schools and “Adopt-A-School” officers for each elementary school. Most recently we worked together to develop the “Keeping Our Schools Safe” campaign that was fully implemented at the beginning of last school year. We also coordinate training efforts for staff and actively participate in joint emergency response exercises.
Within our school system, central administration support staff and school-based staff work together to provide prevention services to our schools that incl
