Dear Cohoes School Community,
In light of the recent tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, I want to reassure parents that safety is our district’s top priority.
The district works closely with safety/security professionals and the Cohoes City Police Department to make sure our schools are secure. With their guidance, we’ve developed plans for the prevention of and response to a variety of emergency situations. Each of our schools has a building-level safety plan and drills are conducted frequently to make sure that our students are familiar with the protocols.
Additionally, the district has taken a number of preventative measures to ensure safety in our schools, which include: employing safety and security officers at our secondary schools, partnering with Northern Rivers for our behavioral health center at the middle school and focusing on trauma-sensitive practices district-wide.
I encourage you to talk to your children to help them process these recent events. To aid in that effort, we are providing a resource from Parent Today, a publication from the Capital Region BOCES Communications Service, which offers a few suggestions to help parents consider how to begin these
conversations with their children.
Parent Today article – “When the News Gets Scary”
Please do not hesitate to reach out to me or your child’s principal if you have any questions about safety practices in our schools.
Keeping our students safe is our most important job.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Spring Ed.D.
Superintendent