School Safety

Closed Campus

Under no circumstances are students allowed to leave the school building without permission. A student with permission to leave may only leave under the escort and supervision of an authorized adult. Students should be aware that the school has several neighbors, and should be respectful and courteous of their needs. Once students have entered the school in the morning, they may not leave the building unless a school staff member or other authorized adult escorts them.

Visitor Policy

All visitors are required to report to the Front Desk upon entering the building. Any visitor, including parents, who do not report to the office or is found in the building without authorization, will be asked to leave immediately. Visitors must wear visitor badges at all times to indicate that they have checked-in at the main office. Parents are encouraged to visit the school and parent involvement is discussed in more detail later in this handbook. We need to ensure that all adults are clearly identified when in the building with Explorers.

School Searches

In order to maintain the security of all students, the School authorizes the Principal and his or her designee(s) to conduct searches of students and their belongings if the authorized school official has reasonable suspicion to believe that the search will result in evidence that the student violated the law or the School’s Code of Conduct or otherwise constituted a threat to the health, safety, welfare, or morals of the school, other students, school personnel, or any other person lawfully on school property or attending a school function. In authorizing searches, the school acknowledges both state and federal constitutional rights, which are applicable to personal searches of students and searches of their possessions.

Students have no reasonable expectation of privacy rights in school lockers, desks, or other school storage places. The school exercises overriding control over such school property, which may be opened and subjected to inspection at any time by school officials.

An authorized school official may search a student or the student’s belongings based upon information received from a reliable informant. Individuals, other than the school’s employees, will be considered reliable informants if they have previously supplied information that was accurate and verified, make an admission against their own interest, provide the same information that is received independently from other sources, or appear to be credible and the information they are communicating relates to an immediate threat to safety. School employees will be considered reliable informants unless they are known to have previously supplied information that they knew was not accurate.

Students may be subject to personal searches and searches of their possessions where reasonable individualized suspicion exists to conduct such search. Reasonable individualized suspicion to conduct a search of a student or a student’s possessions and the scope of the particular search shall be based upon, among other things, the student’s age, the prevalence and seriousness of the problem to which the search is directed, the urgency necessitating an immediate search, and the probative value and reliability of information used as justification for the search.