Newport-Mesa Unified School District will pilot a program to train students to respond to emergencies on campuses.
The one-year program, which will be piloted at three campuses starting July 1 will provide training for students that includes preparing them for potential active-shooter scenarios, according to a Daily Pilot article.
The district’s Board of Trustees voted 5-0 Tuesday to approve an agreement with Safe Kids Inc. to provide the HERO program at a cost $7,750.
HERO — Hide, Escape, Run, Overcome — is designed to teach students how to respond to situations with “simple, easy-to-remember and truly effective strategies,” the newspaper reported.
“This is a pretty heavy-duty topic to be talking about with our youngest students,” Russell Lee-Sung, the district’s deputy superintendent and chief academic officer, told the Daily Pilot. “We were struggling with how to teach this.”
The agreement with Safe Kids will furnish teachers and administrators at Paularino, Kaiser and Lincoln elementary schools with a curriculum tailored to introduce younger students to safety protocols for possible shootings and other violent events on campus.
According to the Daily Pilot, lessons incorporate English-language arts standards and include classroom discussions, narratives, journals and physical activities. The goal is to help students learn HERO concepts in a nonthreatening and age-appropriate manner.
Here are some other education news stories from throughout the week ending June 28.
- Find out how many kindergartners in 2018-19 were vaccinated or got a medical exemption at your school in this searchable database from EdSource.
- State lawmakers are proposing adding to schools’ curriculum more history on different civil rights activists such as Harry Gamboa, a young man who lead walkouts in the 1960s from Los Angeles schools in protest of high dropout rates and crumbling facilities.
- With $10 million in funding, an ambitious timeline and a champion in Gov. Gavin Newsom, the Legislature is poised to pass legislation for a statewide education data system that will follow children from infancy through the workplace.
- As part of the budget agreement, state lawmakers will allocate close to $500 million for a new grant program supporting early intervention for students with disabilities.
- A fiscal audit was requested by OCDE after the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District reported irregularities involving ASB funds at one of its high schools.
- Across California, schools and districts are working to implement the Next Generation Science Standards that were adopted in 2013 and to prepare students for the new California Science Test.
- A Trabuco Hills High School program established to promote inclusion on the field and in the classroom has earned a special state accolade that recognizes exemplary practices in special education.
- A column by Orange County Superintendent of Schools D. Al Mijares examines how more effective — and proactive — approaches to student disciplinary issues can yield better results than traditionally punitive measures.
- As the temperatures rise and children on summer break look for fun activities, splashing and swimming in pools seems like a cool option. Here’s a set of tips from the American Red Cross for parents to help keep kids safe this summer.
This is the part where we encourage you to keep up with local education news stories by bookmarking the OCDE Newsroom, subscribing for emailed updates or following us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.