Safety planning continues at West Grand

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Darrin Peppard
Darrin Peppard

Parents asked to participate in reunification drill May 15

by Darrin Peppard
West Grand Superintendent
I will begin today with a thank you to Grand County Sheriff’s Department and Kremmling Police for their efforts in keeping our kids and staffulty safe this past Monday. It could be said that the situation consumed law enforcement for quite some time, yet they still were mindful of our kids calling the district and getting our schools into a safe, lockout situation and having a uniformed officer check in with us at our later release time. Over the past year, we have worked a great deal to fortify the relationship between our schools, sheriff and police departments. Monday, that work was validated in the response of law enforcement and school leaders.

Continuing with the school safety topic, West Grand will be going through the next big step in our preparation. It is one element to have protocols in place for response to a multitude of threats or situations.

The district has completed their emergency operations plan and instituted consistent response protocols. But if a situation were to arise that would require taking students and staff away from the schools, how do you reconnect parents with their children in a safe and efficient manner? This is the process known as reunification. To see the process, go to our website (www.wgsd. us) and click on school safety to watch the video.

As a district, we have been working this year to plan well for reunification if it were to become necessary. This might be due to something like a gas leak, emergency situation in one of our schools, or the worst case scenario. In order to be as efficient as possible, and to learn the process prior to it being necessary, West Grand will be holding a reunification drill on Wednesday, May 15 during the school day from 1-4 p.m.

It is my hope we are able to practice and finds glitches in our system so we will be having our middle school only participating in the drill. All schools will have a lockdown drill that day, but the middle school will evacuate after the lockdown ends and then will reunify with their parents later in the day at Middle Park Fairgrounds. We would appreciate as many middle school parents participate as possible to give us the most realistic drill we can hold.