Safety
Protecting our students and staff will always be our top priority. Still, there is no guarantee that any school will be completely safe from crime, violence, or disaster. We believe school safety is a complex, community issue that needs a multi-faceted approach with input from students, staff, parents, residents, law enforcement, and governmental and mental wellness partners.
Protecting Our Comets
In Mason, we are grateful to share a campus with the City of Mason Police Department. In fact, four of our five schools are located within a quarter mile of the City of Mason’s police headquarters (and the other school is less than two miles away.)
Following the terrible Parkland, FL school shooting, the Mason City Schools Board of Education invested in an important $1 million partnership with the City of Mason to create a campus safety team that ensures we have armed law enforcement officers in all of our schools.
MCS SAFETY PRACTICES
The Mason City Schools District has implemented several initiatives in recent years to increase the safety of our schools. That work is ongoing, and our safety plans are never “finished products.” Our safety protocols are reviewed regularly by our District’s Safe and Inviting Schools Council which meets at least four times a year and is made up of staff, parents, community members, and Mason Fire Department and Mason Police Department officials.
Some aspects of our district safety plan are visible to the public, while others are not. Some of our current practices include:
Some aspects of our district safety plan are visible to the public, while others are not. Some of our current practices include:
- Partnering with the City of Mason to ensure law enforcement presence in each school. The City of Mason’s Campus Safety Team consists of full time and part time Police Officers, DARE and School Resource Officers, Firefighters and security personnel.
- Ensuring secure entries at all schools. Our front line staff are important members of our safety and security team, and that is why we require visitors to check into offices and remain in their line of sight while waiting.
- Security film: Fortifying windows and glass throughout the district to help deter unwanted individuals from entering school buildings and assist in protecting schools from break-ins or vandalism.
- Giving card access points at each school for staff
- Providing a direct surveillance feed to the Mason Police Department in emergency situations.
- Equipping our schools and buses with cameras. All Mason City Schools have been equipped with cameras that are monitored.
- Using MARCS radios to alert all local and county police in the event of an emergency, and district two-way radios in schools in the event of cell phone outage
- Regularly scheduled ALICE active assailant professional development and drills. The City of Mason and the District regularly conduct joint active assailant drills that helped both organizations practice and improve our emergency response capabilities. Watch this MCS Family Academy video installment explaining ALICE.
- Communicating with parents by phone and/or text in the event of an emergency using SchoolMessenger. Opt into Text Messaging.
Anti-Bullying Efforts
Keeping our schools safe means growing students who stand up to bullies, and who are not afraid to ask for help. Board Policy JFCF outlines that bullying, harassment and intimidation is an intentional written, verbal, electronic or physical act that causes mental or physical harm to the other student and is sufficiently severe, persistent or pervasive that it creates an intimidating, threatening or abusive educational environment for the other student. If your child (or another student) is being bullied or harassed, please report the behavior to the Principal or the Safe Schools Tipline.
View 2021-2022 Bullying Incidents
See Something?
Step Up & Say Something!
To help safeguard our school community, our district uses SafeSchools Alert, a tip reporting service that allows students, staff, parents and community members to submit safety concerns to our administration four different ways:
1. Phone: 513-972-4910
2. Text: 513-972-4910
3. Email: 1059@alert1.us
4. Web: http://1059.alert1.us
You and your child can easily report tips on bullying, harassment, biased-based incidents, drugs, students at risk of self-harm, vandalism or any safety issue you're concerned about through SafeSchools Alert. When you submit a tip, be sure to use our district’s identification code: 1059 in your communication.
Every tip SafeSchools Alert receives about our district is immediately logged in the system and our administration is notified so that they can investigate and take appropriate action. And, tips may also be submitted anonymously if you prefer.
PREVENTION IS KEY
We believe that having schools where all our students are known and feel connected to classmates and at least one loving adult at school is the most proactive thing we can do to keep our schools safe. That's why we've made a significant investment into our prevention and wellness programming, and our commitment to creating a positive, inclusive culture where each student can feel safe and that they belong.
During the 2021-2022 school year, MCS invested in a new partnership with Panorama Education to complete a semi-annual stakeholder survey looking at social emotional needs, school safety, and the impact of positive relationships on student mental health. Using this data, Mason City Schools Prevention & Wellness team is able to preventatively identify groups of students who may need additional support in the areas of mental health and behavior. Additionally, when we see patterns of behavioral or mental health concerns, we work with our teams of mental health providers to refer and provide wraparound support for students both while at school and in the community. If there is ever a significant concern regarding student mental health, suicidal ideation, or a threat to school safety, the district completes an in-depth risk/threat assessment on the student to determine immediate and future steps needed to support the student and family. Those assessments include input from our partner medical professionals as well as local law enforcement to help us ensure that the student has all of the necessary support in place.