How do we keep our children safe in the face of an ever changing, and increasingly mobile society? One that due to our over reliance; even our very existence in many cases, on technology, oil, gas, entertainment etc., while at the expense of a loss of mutual respect, civility, respect for diversity, and orderly conduct among students, employees, parents and other community members.. Keeping our children safe and free from harm is a family, school and community challenge that becomes more difficult when the needed resources are not available to assist in the development of sound plans, with a focus on proactive measures versus reacting to issues of safety as they occur.

Crete-Monee School District 201-U is well aware of the challenges we face in keeping our schools safe. The district consistently researches and seeks funding to develop plans that reflect “best practice” standards in school safety. At the beginning of the 2007-08 school year, we used funds from our Safe Schools Grant to hire a nationally recognized school safety specialist to assist us in enhancing and fortifying our emergency response and crises management planning by conducting facility safety audits.

The safety audits focused on the four major areas related to school safety:

• Access Control
• Surveillance
• Communication/Response
• Quality of District and School Safety Plans and Procedures

We are very proud to announce that we are the recipients of the Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools Grant (REMS) -- a federally funded grant in the amount of $205,000.00 which will allow us to continue our efforts to enhance and reinforce our existing emergency management plans.