District-Wide Safety Plan

The North Syracuse Central District has a District-Wide Safety Plan in place to address student and staff safety issues. The plan would be activated in the event of a local disaster or school emergency. 

Statistics show schools are still among the safest places to be on a day-to-day basis, due to the strong commitment of educators, parents and communities to their children. Nevertheless, disasters do happen and, because of that, no community can be complacent in its efforts to make its schools even safer. 

As part of its District-Wide Safety Plan, the district has a designated chief emergency officer who is responsible for coordinating communication between staff, law enforcement and first responders to ensure staff understanding of the district-level safety plan. The chief emergency officer will also be responsible for communicating details to staff during an emergency. 

Also in the event of an emergency, the district’s school information officer will be responsible for disseminating information to the public by communicating with local media and the community. Several communication methods are available to the district and will be utilized as appropriate. Such methods include text, email and telephone alerts, website updates, social media messages and media announcements. 

The district’s mass communication system, ParentSquare, utilizes the student/parent/guardian information stored in SchoolTool. Therefore, it is imperative that parents and guardians ensure that their contact information is correct in SchoolTool. Whenever your contact information changes, be sure to contact your child’s school immediately to update your information to ensure that you receive emergency communications from the district. If a student's home address changes, please contact the district's registration office at (315) 218-2145. 

Emergency Response Plans
The District-Wide Safety Plan is directly linked to individual building-level Emergency Response Plans for each school. Protocols reflected in the District-Wide Safety Plan guide the development and implementation of individual Building-level Emergency Response Plans. All information pertaining to an emergency or violent incident will be directed to either the building principal or designee. Upon the activation of Building-Level Emergency Response procedures, the Superintendent of Schools or his/her designee is notified and, where appropriate, local emergency officials are also notified. The Building-Level Emergency Response Teams are activated to support an appropriate response to an emergency and play a central role in overall planning for responses to emergencies at the building level. Efforts may be supplemented by County and State resources through existing protocols when needed.

Drills 
The district will provide parents and guardians with advanced notice of emergency drills. NSCSD Schools will send such notification via the Parent Square app up to (7) seven days ahead of each emergency drill. All drills are performed in a trauma informed manner, meaning that we avoid the use of props, actors or simulations in an effort to avoid triggering negative emotional or psychological responses in participating staff or students. With the exception of fire drills which are required to be initiated from a pull station, all district drills are clearly announced (ie. “This is a drill….). Lockdown drills are supported by our School Resource Officers (SRO’s) and their departments, this practice ensures that our building administrators and our local law enforcement teams are familiar with one another and prepared to work effectively together.

The North Syracuse Central School District’s District-Wide Safety Plan is posted online at the beginning of each school year. The 2024 plan is available as a link below. 

Click here to view the North Syracuse Central School District's 2024 Plan