School Safety

A Message from Superintendent Stilley regarding School Safety

Student and Families,

The new school year is quickly approaching!  All summer, our team has been working to ensure that 2022-2023 will be a great year, and as always, the safety of staff and students is a top priority. With this in mind, the following measures have been put in place for the new school year:

CONTROLLED ACCESS: One of the most important things we can do to protect our campuses from potential threats that jeopardize the safety of students and employees is to keep the threat from ever entering the campus at all. Therefore, we will control access to all our school campuses. Our priority is to have one point of ingress and egress for each school. In accordance with state law and Tangipahoa Parish School Board policy, no person is allowed on school grounds or in school buildings or facilities without authorization from the appropriate school official.  All visitors will be required to report to the main entrance/office immediately upon coming onto school grounds and must state the purpose of their visit. The main entry at each school will be clearly marked and, throughout the campuses, signage will be posted directing any and all visitors to the main office. Our school principals are authorized to take the necessary steps in dealing with unauthorized visitors.

LOCKED DOORS AND SAFETY MONITORS: All exterior doors at our schools will be secured and locked all day. School administrators will assign “safety monitors” to check exterior doors throughout the day to ensure they are securely locked and not propped open for any reason. 

REPORTING SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY: Everyone on campus should be observant and should report any suspicious activity.  Students, parents, employees, and community members must say something if they see or hear something!  Nothing is too small to report to local law enforcement or school officials so threats may be checked out to give us all peace of mind and ensure our safety. Any suspicious activity may be reported anonymously through the P3 App. Reports entered through this app are automatically sent to law enforcement and specific school administrators to investigate. You may download the app by going to our website (www.tangischools.org) and typing P3 App in the search bar. Also, you may report any potential threats by calling 1-877-668-2421. The Tangipahoa Parish School System was one of the first school districts to partner with the Louisiana State Police to utilize 3D mapping. This new technology provides in-depth details of every building in our school system. This will allow law enforcement a much faster response time in case of a safety threat. The RAVE App is another technology tool that can be downloaded on any smartphone. This app allows any employee to report an intruder or emergency on the school campus by pushing a button on his or her phone. It quickly notifies authorities and identifies exactly where they are in the building. This, along with the 3D mapping, helps ensure faster response times. 

PRESENCE OF LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS: We will have an “open door policy” for all law enforcement officers to visit our  campuses, have lunch, and park on our campuses while completing paperwork, etc. Local law enforcement officers will now have access to our school cameras so they may assist in case of any threat to the safety of our campuses.  Also, we are increasing the number of School Resource Officers at our schools. Because all our high schools are LHSAA schools, uniformed deputies will be on hand at all our high school sporting events. 

TRAINING AND DRILLS: Once again, we will provide active shooter training to our employees and require our schools to conduct various drills throughout the year to prepare for an emergency situation - secure, lockdown, evacuation, and shelter in place, etc. We will also continue school discussions at whole faculty meetings or professional learning communities regarding various scenarios related to threats.

Thank you in advance for your commitment to help ensure the safety of our school campuses. We look forward to a great 2022-2023 school year!