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Board hears updates to districtwide safety plan, details on drills and training
Summary
At a public hearing, the board reviewed updates to the South Orangetown Central School District's 75‑page districtwide safety plan, including added SRO membership, an updated security MOU, new drill-notification rules from SED, and expanded CPR/bleeding-control training.
Speaker 3 presented the districtwide safety plan and summarized recent changes at a public hearing held during the board meeting. The plan and a summary of confidential building-level plans were posted to the district website on July 12 after a 30‑day public comment period.
Speaker 3 said the public document is about 75 pages long and that the district updated approximately a dozen sections this year. Notable changes listed in the presentation included requiring both school resource officers to be part of the district safety team, an updated memorandum of understanding for 2024–25 with the district's security guard vendor, and clarified duties for the chief emergency officer (Speaker 3 said the district’s CE0 duties are described in the plan and identified himself as the chief emergency officer).
Training and medical-response items were highlighted: the district reported about 135 people trained in CPR (including security personnel and facility staff) and 75 people trained in abbreviated bleeding-control instruction; appendix 13 on the plan lists who received training and the district said roughly 19 bleeding-control kits are located in AED cabinets and other common areas.
Speaker 3 reviewed State Education Department amendments that took effect July 31 and affect drill procedures. Under the amendments, the district must notify staff, parents and parental relations up to one week in advance of lockdown drills (evacuation/fire drills are not subject to the same notice requirement). The SED language also requires drills be trauma‑informed and developmentally appropriate and discourages use of props or actors that could traumatize students; full‑scale exercises that do not involve students (for example, an exercise with outside tactical or law-enforcement partners) were described as different from routine drills.
The presentation also described statutory expectations for coordinated threat assessment and management teams (TAM). Speaker 3 said Rockland County’s TAM (RCTAM) coordinates police, school districts and community stakeholders and that the district participates so that threat information is shared across the county rather than handled in isolation.
Speaker 3 said updated confidential floor plans have been revised with additional data points to assist law enforcement; those detailed maps will be stored in the confidential plan and shared with law enforcement via the state portal. He said the district expects to submit required materials to the State Education Department about 30 days after the hearing, roughly around Sept. 10, and that some confidential-plan updates (updated maps) were still in progress.
During Q&A, board members raised questions about the number and timing of required lockdown drills (Speaker 3 said there are four lockdown drills per year, with two required by Dec. 31), the one‑week notice requirement, whether parents may opt out (Speaker 3 said parents may not opt out), and how absences during drills would be handled. Speaker 3 said principals and assistant principals typically have access to confidential building plans and that board members seeking access could arrange an appointment or consider executive‑session review rather than public distribution.
The board did not record a formal vote on the districtwide public plan during the hearing; Speaker 3 characterized the districtwide document as ready "with your approval" while confidential-plan items were still being finalized.
