Safety & Security

Ridge Junior School partners with the West Chester Police Department for School Resource Officer (SRO) services. Ongoing programs for school safety include lockdown drills using lockdown drills as well as monthly fire and tornado drills. Our SRO works to build positive relationships between students and police officers. He also works closely with the school counselor for in-class guided lessons regarding day-to-day safety of our students, including situations at school, at home, and with technology.

Meet Our SRO

In This Section

The safety, health, and well-being of Lakota students, staff, volunteers, and visitors is our top priority.

Lakota Safety & Security Brochure

Safety Teams & Emergency Plans

Lakota’s Safety Team works closely with local law enforcement and emergency management officials to develop and refine an Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) for handling crisis situations including lockdowns, natural disasters, chemical spills, bomb threats, missing students and strangers in the building. Every Lakota facility has a comprehensive emergency plan.

Safety Drills

Students and staff participate in regularly scheduled safety exercises that include tornado drills, fire drills, evacuation drills and shelter-in-place drills.

Controlled Access

School doors are locked, and call boxes are used at front entrances for visitors to identify themselves and to notify the office of the reason for their visit. Security cameras have been added to strategic locations throughout the district to help deter unwanted individuals from entering school buildings and assist in protecting schools from break-ins or vandalism. Cameras inside our buildings also aid in keeping our facilities safe.

Bearacade Lockdown System

Bearacade Door Control Systems are installed in classrooms and throughout our buildings, allowing rooms to be secured in eight seconds or less.

Safety Tip Line

Lakota partners with SaferSchools Ohio to provide a free 24-hour anonymous tip line to help alert local law enforcement to potential school safety crises. You can report anything that is suspicious or endangering by calling or texting 844-SAFEROH (or 844-723-3764).

Raptor Visitor Management System

Any volunteer with unsupervised access to students will be required to pass a criminal background check through Raptor, our visitor management system. Raptor enhances and automates visitor management by reading a visitor driver's license (or other approved government-issued ID) and proactively alerting personnel to potential threats. For approved visitors, the system prints visitor badges that include the visitor’s name, photo, date and destination. Visitors must sign in at the office and wear the visitor badge while at the school.

Mental Health Resources

Lakota offers a variety of services and supports to meet the mental health needs of our students. School counselors are available in every school building, and a partnership with MindPeace provides access to licensed therapists.

School Resource Officers

Lakota currently has school resource officers serving each of our campuses. These are uniformed law enforcement officers, either deputies from the Butler County Sheriff’s Office or police officers from the West Chester Township Police Department.

Additional Safety Information

Safety Communications

Emergency Communications

In the event of a serious emergency, all communication methods available will be used. This includes:

Phone calls
Email messages
Text messages
Mobile app alerts
District website posting
District Facebook page posting
District Twitter posting
Posted signs at the affected location
Local news media

If parents/guardians need to pick up students, they will be notified using the communications methods listed above. Click here to make sure your communication preferences are up-to-date.

Every school has a crisis plan. It includes procedures to move everyone to safety as quickly as possible. Maps or directions for two exit routes are posted in every classroom. If students must leave the site entirely, buses will be sent to transport the students.

Safety Tip Line

Faces fill up "Speak Up" text with "Save Lives" in a yellow bar and phone information

Lakota Local Schools is proud to partner with SaferSchools Ohio to provide our families with a free resource for keeping our schools safe. The anonymous tip line service helps alert local law enforcement to potential school safety crises. By calling or texting the statewide tip line - 844-SAFEROH (or 844-723-3764) - you can report anything that is suspicious or endangering you, your friends or your school.

What is SaferSchools Ohio?

When is the tip line available?

How can you assure anonymity?

Emergency Response Procedures

Lakota continually seeks to ensure safety and security in all of our schools and facilities. Controlled access to buildings, a strict volunteer registration program, crisis communication, employees, and first responders are all essential elements. The district undertakes an extensive hazard assessment to determine the most realistic hazards facing our various schools. Whether it is prevention and mitigation, preparedness, response, or recovery, our district strives to manage every phase of emergency readiness competently and effectively. Our work to strengthen the safety and security measures at Lakota Schools is ongoing. We focus on reflective practice and continuous improvement in all that we do.

To ensure Lakota schools and offices are safe places to learn and work, the district convenes a district safety committee to engage in a collaborative process with all stakeholders to review and discuss improvements to current safety practices and procedures. Throughout the school year, students and staff also continue practicing emergency drills to increase preparedness in the case of a real emergency.

If an emergency occurs while school is in session, the district’s first action is to make sure students and staff are safe and to engage local emergency officials to determine next steps, gather information and discuss what information can be released so as not to hinder any necessary police investigations. The district will then use appropriate methods of communication to inform parents and community members (see the Safety Communications section above).

In any emergency situation, it is critical that school leaders and safety personnel can respond quickly and focus on the situation. In the event that the response includes an emergency student dismissal, it is important for parents to understand that students will be dismissed to parents once the danger has passed. Parents should stay clear of the situation and wait for communication about reunification procedures. Parents can be assured that no child will be left alone and that strict procedures will be enacted to ensure student safety and their release to parent-approved, appropriate adults.

Severe Weather Procedures During and After Dismissal

If severe weather initiates the emergency siren notification system during dismissal:

Students: All students will return inside the school building and shelter in-place until the severe weather warning has expired. This includes students receiving district-provided transportation, private transportation or those who walk or bike to/from school. Students will not be released during an active shelter-in-place event.
Staff, Parents & Visitors: Building staff and visitors will also be asked to shelter in-place until the severe weather warning has expired. Parents/guardians, daycare transportation providers and others who are there to pick up students will be offered access to the building during the shelter-in-place event.

If severe weather initiates the emergency siren notification after dismissal while students are on district-provided buses or vans, the driver will drive to the closest shelter (school, public building, etc.) and evacuate the bus/van into the shelter. If the driver is unable to make it to a safe shelter and the threat is imminent, the driver will conduct an evacuation and seek shelter in a low-lying area such as a ditch or ravine.

Only after the severe weather warning has expired will district transportation resume their routes. If sheltering in place at school, parents/guardians, visitors, daycare transportation drivers and district drivers will be released first to return to their vehicles. Students will remain in the building until these individuals have cleared the building and then normal dismissal procedures will resume.

As a reminder, dismissal times for any schools released after a shelter-in-place event will be delayed.

While a general communication will come from Lakota during a district-wide weather event, parents can expect a separate communication from their school detailing their response, current status and dismissal procedures.

What happens once a tip is reported?

Calls or texts to 844-SaferOH (844-723-3764) are answered by analysts in the Ohio Homeland Security’s Threat Assessment and Prevention (TAP) Unit. When action is needed, the TAP Unit immediately forwards information to local school officials, local law enforcement agencies and others, if necessary.

TAP Unit analysts always follow up quickly with the affected school and law enforcement agencies to make sure that the incident is investigated, action is taken and the outcome is tracked.

School Visitors and Volunteers

School Visitors

The Lakota Board of Education welcomes and encourages visits to the school by parents and other adult residents of the district. If special arrangements due to disability are necessary, please contact the building principal for assistance. In accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, the district will make reasonable accommodations so persons with disabilities may access Lakota schools and school events. The Board also has an obligation to ensure that school visits are not disruptive to the educational process and student achievement. It is necessary, then, to regulate school visits as follows:

Pursuant to Section 3313.20 of the Ohio Revised Code, all visitors to the building are required to be cleared through the principal's office before contacting any student or staff member. Depending on the nature of the business to be conducted at school, visitors are required to sign in and/or out as determined by the principal. All visitors must wear an identification tag.
Persons wishing to visit a class in session need to make arrangements in advance with the school principal. The principal will make every effort to schedule the visit as soon as possible at a time convenient for the visitor and the teacher.
The superintendent and/or the building principal has the authority to prevent entry into the school or to remove any person when there is sufficient and good reason to believe the presence of that person is not conducive to the preservation of the peace or the orderly operation of the school.
All visitors will have their government issued ID scanned through the Raptor Visitor Management System prior to being issued a visitor’s badge. The scan performs a rapid background check as part of Lakota’s safety and security protocols.

School Volunteers

Any volunteer with unsupervised access to students will be required to pass a criminal background check using a government issued ID. The cost of the background check is $15 and will be valid for three (3) years.

Volunteers should click on the button below to access the Raptor website and initiate their background check. Volunteers will receive an email from Raptor Tech once the application has been approved. Applications may take up to 72 hours to be processed.

Approved volunteers will receive an email 30 days prior to the expiration date to remind them to renew their background check.

If your volunteer status was approved through a BCI/FBI background check between July 1, 2017 - July 1, 2018, you have been automatically approved in the Raptor system. All volunteer coaches must still apply for a BCI/FBI background check through Lakota’s Human Resources Department.

Begin Raptor Volunteer Background Check

**All processing questions about background checks should be directed to Raptor Support at 877-772-7867 or info@raptortech.com.

Helpful Resources

How Parents Can Help

General Information

Students with proper attitudes toward themselves, their classmates, and potential dangers will be safest. They will be more likely to remain calm during emergencies, and will learn to defuse anger and avoid violence. You can help in still those attitudes in your children.
Make sure your children know how to approach, enter, and leave buses safely. They should always look for traffic and should not have loose strings, straps, or key chains that could get caught in bus doors or on other objects.
Encourage students to take all safety drills seriously. Students sometimes think drills are a waste of time. All drills are meant to ensure students are is prepared for a real emergency.
Talk with young children about fire safety. Plan and practice escape routes at home and teach them the importance of fire drills and knowing the escape routes at school as well. Let them know that drills are a way to practice safety, so they will be less worried if a surprise drill is held.
Become a visible part of your children’s school. Attend parent-teacher conferences, PTA meetings, and visit often. If you have the time, become a volunteer in the school. Your presence helps you better understand what your children are doing, and you also provide visual proof to other students that adults are nearby and care about the schools.
Discuss violence with your children. They see violent images on television, in movies, and in video games, and sometimes in their lives. You can help them understand the difference between fictional violence and real-life responses to problems; you can also help them decide what to do when faced with violent situations.
Provide care, supervision, and activities for your children. After-school programs in churches, scouts, sports, and schools build self-esteem in children and give them alternatives to dangerous or illegal activities. Volunteer work, too, allows them to grow and become responsible.
Understand the warning signs of troubled youth, both in your children and their friends. While these aren’t absolute predictors of children who will become aggressive or violent, they indicate children who are likely having problems and need help. The signs include withdrawing from friends or activities, excessive feelings of isolation and/or rejection, feelings of persecution, low school interest and poor academic performance, expressions of violence in writings and drawings, uncontrolled anger, patterns of bullying or intimidating others, chronic discipline problems, and being a victim of abuse or violence.
Listen and show respect to your children. Encourage them to try out new skills, to learn from their mistakes, and to discuss their feelings and problems. Teaching them to solve conflicts and complete work themselves helps them to become more knowledgeable and self-confident. In addition, play and laugh with your children. Share their childhood.

Here are ways that parents can help prepare for emergency situations:

Keep emergency contact information up to date; double-check your information in FinalForms at the start of each school year and update as needed.
Talk to your children and emphasize how important it is to follow instructions from their teachers and school officials during any emergency.

In the event of an emergency:

Do not telephone the school during a crisis situation; it is essential that the telephone system be available for emergency communications.
The district website will be the primary source for updates. Information may also be sent to parents using the district's email, phone call and text message notification system. Providing timely and accurate information to parents is a priority, along with the safety of each child.
Do not share unconfirmed information on social media.
Do not come to the school or evacuation location until instructed.
Use caution calling or texting your child; sounds can disclose location.