Take School Safety Survey by Oct. 19
On September 14, 2023, the Olympia School District Board of Directors approved Policy 4311, "School Safety and Security Services Program." The policy is a first step in a possible new formal partnership with the City of Olympia and its staff around school safety. The policy calls for community involvement and has certain requirements including:
- Prohibiting a school resource officer from becoming involved in school discipline situations that are the responsibility of a school administrator.
- Prior to working in schools, requiring officers or any safety staff to have met state training requirements in areas that include: civil rights of children, adolescent development, trauma-informed approaches, youth mental health issues, rights of students with disabilities, bias-free policing and cultural competency, an understanding of disparities with use of force and arrests of children, collateral consequences of arrest, alternatives to arrest, de-escalation techniques, laws around restraint and isolation, family and student rights to privacy, and restorative justice principles.
- A process for families to file complaints with the school and, when applicable, the local law enforcement agency related to safety and security staff, and a process for investigating and responding to complaints.
Please complete a brief School Safety Survey (English, Spanish, Vietnamese), which will help inform next steps in this process. The deadline to complete this survey is 11 p.m. on Thursday, October 19, 2023.