ALICE-Enhance Lock Down Protocol

ALICE: District Staff to be Trained on Enhanced Lock Down Protocol

Providing a safe and secure learning environment for students is of paramount importance in the Olathe Public Schools. The district has numerous practices, procedures and protocols in place each day to ensure a safe learning environment.

Starting this spring, the district will begin training staff on a new safety protocol program called ALICE. ALICE is a protocol that enhances current lockdown procedures. The U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Homeland Security and other educational leadership and governmental agencies have recommended that school districts develop a protocol that provides options to students and staff when facing threat or harm from an aggressive intruder.

ALICE stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evaluate. ALICE empowers staff to exercise options in the event of such a critical incident, based on real-time information gathered during the incident. This enhanced protocol does not dictate to staff or students how they should react, but merely provides options for actions in addition to just lockdown. 

There will be district-wide information opportunities for parents moving forward.

“As a school district we are continuously in a mode of improvement,” said Assistant Superintendent Erin Dugan. “This is true in the area of safety and security as well. ALICE is an improvement to our current lockdown protocol as current best practice supports a lock down protocol that provides options to staff.”

 

 

In Appreciation...!

In Appreciation for all you do:

The Heritage Teachers would like to thank Victoria White, Angela Ward, Tonya Sorrels, Lisa Haworth, Jessie Williams and all of the parents who provided the delicious dinner during conferences.
We know it's alot of work, but we love it!

Also, a heartfelt thank you to Angela Ward, Tonya Sorrels and Victoria White for helping with Spring Picture Day February 20th.  Because of them, the day went smoothly and quickly.

Message from the Principal

Surveys

Thanks to the many Heritage families that provided feedback throughout the last few weeks on a building survey.  Your comments provided valuable information that should help to make our school community better. 
We do have 2 more surveys we are asking parents to complete.  The first one has been created by the district.  Please see a post below for more information and a link.  The second survey has been created by our PTO.  We will be providing paper copies of this survey at conferences this week.  These will be distributed throughout the school including the “waiting” area at each grade level.  Once completed, we have a box labeled “PTO Survey” at the front entrance for you to anonymously place your comments.  If you would prefer to print the survey off and bring it in to school, please click on this PTO Survey link.  This is a great opportunity for families to communicate a vision they may have for the future of our PTO. 

We look forward to seeing all our families at conferences this week.  Thank you for taking the time to meet with our teachers.  Communication between school and home is one of the most important things we can do for our students.  See you soon!

Scott McFarland

5th Grade Backboards for Science

5th Grade Backboards for Science

The 5th Graders have been working very hard on their Science Backboards that were displayed at Heritage last Monday for Backboard Night.  Tonight, January 31st all of the backboards will be displayed and judged at Santa Fe Middle School along with backboards from other elementary schools.
Each backboard displays an experiment or invention and must contain:

• A Statement of Problem
• A Hypothesis
• A Procedure
• A Materials List
• Results, Usually With A Graph
• A Conclusion 

3rd Grade Music Program

3rd Grade Music Program

The third grade shared their Spanish songs with us on Thursday afternoon and evening.  Mrs. Owen, our music teacher led the students through songs with lots of Latin rhythms and Spanish words in two fun shows called "Cantamos Americanos".  They even danced a conga line!

Wonderful performance, Third Grade!

 

Message From the Principal

Construction Update

Plans are taking shape for crews to begin construction the first week of March on our front entrance.  This will certainly be an exciting and important change for Heritage, but there will be some procedures that will be affected by the construction process.  In addition to losing access to our front entrance, we will more than likely lose our sidewalk out front and a lane of traffic.  This is going to cause us to make some changes in our drop off and pick up procedures.  Many Olathe Schools have gone to a number system, especially those that have begun the construction process.  What these schools have done is assign each family a number that corresponds with each student.  When parents pull up the number is radioed inside to alert teachers which student/students need to go outside to a designated spot to be picked up.  I am in the process of talking with the schools that have implemented this procedure to get a better understanding of how they have made it work.  This will also be a topic of discussion during tonight’s Site Council meeting and next Tuesday night’s PTO meeting.  On January 22^nd, our Building Leadership Team will be meeting to develop a plan to best meet our needs.  Once we have developed a plan, we will communicate this to our community.  If you have input or suggestions, please shoot me an email prior to the 22^nd at smcfarlandht@olatheschools.org.

Speaking of input, I would like to gain some information from our community members on how I am doing as your child’s principal.  If you could take a moment to fill out a brief survey, the information you provide will help me to perform my job better. The following is a link to the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ScottMcFarland2013-14ParentSurvey

The survey will close on January 28^th.  Thanks so much for your time and perspective with this. 

 

Scott McFarland

 

 

Spelling Bee

Heritage Spelling Bee

Fourteen Heritage students were brave enough last Wednesday, December 11^th, to spell challenging words in front of 2^nd thru 5^th graders at the Spelling Bee.  After a hard fought battle, our Spelling Bee Winner is Olivia and our 2^nd Place Speller is Allie.  Congratulations!

Thank you to Mrs. Stutzman for organizing and calling out the words, and to Mrs. Pat, Mrs. Mayer and Mrs. Owen for being our judges.