Section I: General Considerations and Planning Guidelines

A. Purpose

The Greater Johnstown District-wide School Safety Plan was developed pursuant to Commissioner’s Regulation 155.17. At the direction of the Greater Johnstown School District Board of Education, the Superintendent of the Greater Johnstown School District appointed a District-wide School Safety Team and charged it with the development and maintenance of the District-wide School Safety Plan. The district wide plan was updated as of The district wide plan was updated as of July 19, 2021 and adopted by the Board of Education on August 19. 2021.

B. Identification of School Teams

The Greater Johnstown School District has created a District-wide School Safety Team consisting of, but not limited to, representatives of the School Board, students, teachers, administrators, parent organizations, school safety personnel and other school personnel.

School Board: Arthur Schrum
Student Representative: TBD
Instructional Staff: Heidi Bolebruch, Rachel Harrington, Karlene Peck
Support Staff: Kaye Houtz
Administration: Alicia Koster, Brian Van Nostrand
Transportation: Julia Barrington
Community Member/Parent: Scott Hale
School Safety and Medical Personnel: David Wood, Jessica Barnes, Rick Depasquale, Kerri Hauser, Bobbie Jo Senzio

C. Concept of Operations

The District-wide School Safety Plan shall be directly linked to the Building-level Emergency Response Plan. Protocols reﬂected in the District-wide School Safety Plan will guide the development and implementation of the Building-level Emergency Response Plan.

In the event of an emergency or violent incident, the initial response to all emergencies at an individual school will be the Emergency Response Team.

Upon the activation of the School Emergency Response Team, the Superintendent of Schools or designee will be notiﬁed and, where appropriate, local emergency oﬃcials will also be notiﬁed.
Eﬀorts may be supplemented by County and State resources through existing protocols.

D. Plan Review and Public Comment

This plan has been reviewed as of June 7, 2023.

Pursuant to Commissioner’s Regulation 155.17(e)(3), this plan was made available for public comment 30 days prior to its adoption. The district-wide and building-level plan was adopted by the School Board in 2001 after a public hearing that provided for the participation of school personnel, parents, students and any other interested parties. The plan must be formally adopted by the Board of Education.

Note 1: This was adopted initially in 2001, it is not necessary to go through the public comment period or readoption by the board, just an update.

Full copies of the District-wide School Safety Plan and any amendments will be submitted to the New York State Education Department within 30 days of adoption.

Note 2: In conjunction with Note 1, the submittal occurred in 2001 and currently not required to resubmit to SED.

This plan will be reviewed periodically during the year and will be maintained by the District-wide School Safety Team. The required annual review occurred on June 7, 2023, and the plan was posted to the District’s website. A proposal to re-adopt the plan will be presented to the Board of Education on August 17, 2023.

Building-level Emergency Response Plans will be updated and supplied to local police, the Sheriﬀ’s department and the State Police by September 30th of each academic year.