I hope this letter finds you and your family doing well in these early days of fall. Things here at school are remarkably busy, and the students seem to be thriving.

In my September Head’s Letter I referred to Abraham Maslow’s need hierarchy and emphasized the importance for our children of having an environment in which they feel they belong. Maslow argued that in order to be concerned about belonging, people need first to feel safe and secure. And while we are able to take most aspects of this for granted, recent events of violence or threats of violence have left us all wondering just how safe anyone can be.

The situation in Lancaster and the closing of Radnor High School last week hit particularly close to home for all of us, leaving many of us concerned about our own kids and our own schools. Having realized that I have not written about this issue for quite some time, I thought it important to do it now. I hope this will be helpful to you.

To begin with, you need to know that we have a well-developed crisis plan which we will be reviewing with our public authorities. Of course, it is a plan that we hope we never have to use. Nevertheless, we carry out our monthly drills to practice what we would do if a crisis arose. At the same time, we are looking over our day-to-day operations to be sure that we are as safe as possible. To that end, we have already made a few changes. Here are a few things of note:

All of you know that our doors are locked and that visitors need to be buzzed in. Although we have had our Middle and Lower Schools’ doors unlocked in the early morning and late afternoon for convenience sake, we have decided to keep these doors locked throughout the day for what we hope are obvious reasons. 

Visitors to our School will need to be buzzed in and escorted to the place to which they’re going. This applies to all visitors, including parents, relatives, guardians, and friends. Although this may make life less convenient, it will better protect our students and the community.

Our students in the Middle and Upper Schools all have pass keys that they need to carry with them. Should they lose them, they need to let their Division Head know so that the key can be de-activated.

Although those with pass keys will be able to access the School buildings at any door where there is a security pad, all visitors may enter only at the designated main door of each building. In Lower School, the main entry is where the big metal circle is. Middle School visitors should use the central doors closest to the flagpole in the driveway, and Upper School visitors should use the main door in the semi-circle on Yarrow Street.

While we want to continue to be the caring and welcoming community we always have been, it is important that we put people’s safety first and make sure that we are doing whatever we can to reinforce security in the community. To that end, we spent part of our In-Service on Columbus Day discussing the issues and reviewing our changes. Everyone in the community is committed to doing whatever we need to do to be as safe as possible.

In a slightly different context, when we think of safety and security, all of us in education recognize the challenges our kids face as they become adolescents. Quite often they make decisions that have the potential to compromise their lives. Over the years we’ve worked together and developed resources with other schools to help parents deal with these issues.

There is a resource available through my office. It’s entitled, A Parent’s Guide For the Prevention of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drug Use. On the cover you can see that almost twenty-five schools in the Greater Philadelphia area came together with an organization known as Community of Concern to distribute this brochure. It was written by parents in the Greater Washington, D.C. area who collaborated in similar fashion with schools and Community of Concern there. We sent the first version of this brochure out about five years ago. This one has been newly updated and is much more comprehensive. While the vast majority of our students may not ever face these issues and this might not appear to be relevant to you for any number of reasons, you never know when it could be helpful to you or someone you know. Please keep it available just in case.

Finally, as I hope you know, we have instituted a new emergency phone and email system to notify you in case of emergency. Although I hope that we will never have to access it for that purpose, we will also use it to notify you of decisions associated with bad weather. To that end, we will test the system on Friday, October 20 at about 10:00 in the morning. The system is designed to communicate with you at the phone numbers and email addresses that you have provided to us. In order for it to work, it is crucial that you keep your phone number(s) and email addresses updated with us. (Please call or email Linda Matthew with any changes at lmatthew@shipleyschool.org.) We believe this system will make everyone’s life just a little easier on inclement days. Please let us know if you find any problems with it.

Although I do not like to have to write this kind of letter, there is nothing more important than the safety and welfare of our children. I know you will do whatever you can to be supportive in this process. If you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions, please give me a call or email me at spiltch@shipleyschool.org. Maggie Granados, Harry Worrall, and Mark Schoeffel, our three Division Heads, will keep you abreast of any changes within their respective divisions. In the meantime, I look forward to seeing you in the days and weeks ahead. My thoughts are with you.

Warmest regards,

Steven S. Piltch
Head of School