Dear families,
We are sending this joint message to you today to address the critical topic of school safety. As you may be aware, last week, a student at Memorial High School was arrested and charged with stabbing another student at school. This incident has understandably caused anxiety for students, their families and our staff. The safety of our schools is paramount, and there is no tolerance for behaviors that impact the safety of the school community.
Following the incident at Memorial, school administration and Manchester Police have worked side by side to investigate and take appropriate action under the law and the district’s student code of conduct. You can find the code of conduct here: https://www.mansd.org/page/code-of-conduct.
It is important to understand that we approach school safety as a team. Internally, our District has a standing safety team that takes lead on incident response. Its members bring critical resources and leadership roles to strengthen how we navigate in an emergency. Our team also includes external partners at key city departments, including the Mayor’s Office, Police, Fire and Health. This cooperation and coordination makes our schools stronger, and has helped lead to numerous policy improvements and procedures aimed at improving overall safety, security, and student behaviors.
Thanks to competitive grant funding, we are upgrading access controls, surveillance and alerting systems, implementing a district-wide alert system, and working with Manchester Police to build tools and teams to assess and respond to threats in schools. We are also utilizing federal funding to address student behaviors through district-wide implementation of student support systems known as MTSS-B. When fully implemented, these projects will have a large impact on our schools.
Ultimately we all play a role in keeping our schools safe, and we appreciate the feedback we have received from families in recent days. We continue to encourage you and your students to share information – when you see something, say something – and concerns. We will continue to move forward as a community, and we are stronger together.
We hope that you have a good vacation – we’ll see you back in school on March 4.
Sincerely,
Mayor Jay Ruais,
Superintendent of Schools Jennifer Chmiel Gillis,
Police Chief Allen Aldenberg,
Fire Chief Ryan Cashin,
Public Health Director Anna Thomas