For Immediate Release
Paris 95 School Safety Announcement – August 19, 2022
Dear Parents and Community Members:
Safety is a top priority of our school district every single day. We regularly work to improve our facilities, provide training to our
students and staff, and build relationships with our first responders. This letter is to inform you of some of our recent activities and provide you with an update on future safety matters.
Last school year, Paris Union School District No. 95 obtained over 8 million dollars in grants to help improve school operations and student programming. A portion of that funding came directly from the US Department of Justice as a school safety grant. Recent accomplishments include:
• The school district has tripled its mental health professionals on staff.
• A prevention coordinator was hired to oversee school safety.
• Nationally recognized school safety experts came on-site last year to inspect all school operations and facilities during the
early morning, day, evening, and night. A report was developed that detailed the improvements that needed to be made
for school safety. The district safety committee utilizes this reporting for their annual activities.
• Over 20 staff are nationally certified trainers on ALICE training. ALICE training is a response method to deal with active
shooters.
• Over 200 employees were trained over the summer in mental health first aid.
• 60 individuals are now certified as First Aid, CPR, and AED instructors.
• Anonymous reporting systems were developed and placed on the homepage of every school.
• The school district met with all first responders, and input was collected to make further improvements.
• A Nurse Practioner was employed to assist students with psychiatric healthcare.
Overall, the district is proud of the amount of work we have accomplished, and we can promise we will continue to keep working on the overall safety of our schools each and every day. As we look ahead, Paris 95 schools will be hosting ALICE training with first responders, national experts in the field of school safety, substitute teachers, all school employees, and administration on September 1 and 2. These trainings are very realistic of an actual school shooting event so that our teams are best equipped to handle these situations. Students will not be participating in the training on September 1 and 2. Training will occur on September 18 AM – Noon (Memorial Elementary School); September 1 Noon to 4 PM Mayo Middle School; September 2 8 AM – Noon Carolyn Wenz Elementary School; September 2 Noon to 4 PM (Paris High School). Next week, the school principals will send out messages for the schedule for these dates. The purpose of this letter is to give you a background on this information before letters come out from principals.
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email me directly at jlarson@paris95schools.org. Thank you for your
continued support.
Sincerely,
Dr. Jeremy Larson, MBA
Superintendent of Schools
Paris Union School District No. 95
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