Today all classes received a gift care of the APA, specifically from Gillian Uy and Lisa Parker. This gift helps ensure the safety of Allenby students while at school. Following our last lockdown, I spoke to the APA executive about challenges with ensuring classrooms are locked securely and quickly in the event of a lockdown. Since classroom doors do not have the ability to be locked from the inside (to ensure no student is locked in a classroom) this means that in the event of a lockdown, teachers must retrieve their door key, open the classroom door and lock it from the hallway before entering the room to join their class once again. This takes time, even when the key is on their person, it becomes even lengthier when a specialty teacher is in the room (as I cannot provide a master key that unlocks all rooms to these staff members so multiple keys would need to be distributed). With this in mind, I asked for the APA’s assistance in creating a band that would allow teachers to have their doors locked at all times while still allowing the flow of students in and out of the room throughout the day. This device would need to be easily removed to secure the door in the event of a lockdown or security threat. I cannot express how appreciative I am to both Gillian and Lisa who took my idea and made something far more efficient and visually appealing than I had ever envisioned (click on the picture to enlarge). As parents and educators, lockdowns and security threats are nothing that we want to think about while at the same time ensuring that we are prepared in such an event. Gillian and Lisa’s hours spent designing, testing and sewing of the “Lock Jock” helps to ensure the safety of all staff and students at Allenby. We will be having a lockdown drill before the end of the mo nth to put these into practice. Thank you so much ladies!
Tracey O’Toole