Category: Health and Safety

U.S. DOE WEBINAR: Back-to-School Safety for the K-12 Community

Please join the Federal School Safety Clearinghouse on August 31 at 3:00 PM EDT for an informational webinar on back-to-school safety for the K-12 community.

During the session, leaders from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education will provide an overview of resources, programs, and guidance to support schools in safely re-opening as the 2021-2022 academic school year gets underway. The discussion will feature information on efforts including the Return to School Roadmap, the Lessons from the Field Webinar Series, and the Summer Learning & Enrichment Collaborative.

The webinar will close with a brief look at the additional resources offered through the Federal School Safety Clearinghouse on school safety topics like school climate and mental health, physical security, and threat assessment and reporting, as well as a question and answer period for participants to engage directly with our speakers.

  • When: August 31, 2021, 3:00 to 4:00 PM EDT
  • Where: Adobe Connect (access link to be provided one day in advance of the event)
  • Who: K-12 School Superintendents and Principals; School and District Administrators; Teachers and School Staff; School Resource Officers; Local Law Enforcement; Mental Health Practitioners and School Counselors; Parents
  • Registration: https://schoolsafetybacktoschoolwebinar.eventbrite.com/

We hope you can join us for this special event. If you have any questions, please contact the School Safety team at SchoolSafety@hq.dhs.gov.

This webinar is part of the 2021 School Safety Webinar Series, a program hosted by the Federal School Safety Clearinghouse to address emerging risks and threats facing the K-12 school community. Held on a monthly basis, the webinar series covers a range of school safety topics, and provides information on the resources, tools, and best practices available to equip school leaders with a set of strategies in creating safer and more resilient school systems. Learn more about the Federal School Safety Clearinghouse at SchoolSafety.gov. 

 

Prepare for Fall 2021 Lead Testing in Schools

The Maine Legislature passed a law requiring all school drinking and cooking water fixtures be tested for lead. All schools will either need to work with their local water professional or use the provided training materials to identify water sampling locations, collect water samples, coordinate with the designated laboratory, report results, and follow up with plans/procedures/actions based on the sampling results. Schools should designate someone for this responsibility.

Samples can be ordered on October 1st, 2021. To begin preparing for your sampling, visit our website at www.medwp.com/schools.html to download instructions.

Communication is Key

Before you begin sampling for lead in your school’s drinking water, it’s recommended that you communicate your efforts to parents and guardians. Make it known that by collecting lead water samples, your school is working toward creating a healthier and safer learning environment for students.

Staying ahead with your messaging is proactive and builds trust.  Attached is a template your school can use to develop your messaging:

If you have specific questions about the program you can contact the Drinking Water Program at 207-287-2070. You can also visit Maine’s Childhood Lead Poisoning website, or by calling 866-292-3474.

Website of LGBTQ+ and Gender Expansive Resources now Available to Schools

The Maine Department of Education (DOE) has launched a new section of its website devoted to improving school climate and support of LGBTQ+ students in Maine.

“Every student in Maine has an irrefutable right to feel safe, recognized and valued in their school,” said Commissioner of Education Pender Makin (she/her/hers). “The Maine Department of Education is deeply committed to providing schools and educators the resources they need to ensure that theirs is a safe and welcoming climate, and to validating the voices and experiences of our LGBTQ+ students and school community members.”

The coordination of the website and its resources is the result of a year-long effort and partnership between Maine DOE, OUT Maine, and GLAD (GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders) to provide meaningful resources and information to schools to give them the tools to support not only their LGBTQ+ students but their families and school staff as well. The resources are part of an initiative across the Maine DOE to provide resources and supports to ensure schools are safe and equitable for all students.

Our Stance: The Maine Department of Education supports all LGBTQ+ identifying, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender queer and questioning students, families, and school staff.

“We are thrilled with and grateful for DOE’s strong statement of support for LGBTQ+ youth in Maine schools,” said Jeanne Dooley, Executive Director of OUT Maine. “The thoughtful collection of resources and specific guidance for school districts will be extremely helpful to schools that have been seeking DOE leadership on laws and best practices.”

The website includes data about Maine’s LGBTQ+ youth, the Maine Integrated Youth Health Survey (MIYHS) data, and other vital tools for Maine schools to ensure equity for LGBTQ+ identifying students. There are also additional resources specifically for students and parents.

The website of resources can be accessed here: LGBTQ+ and Gender Expansive Resources. Additional resources for supporting schools in reducing in-school violence and building positive school culture are:

  • SEL4ME: a free to use, comprehensive, CASEL aligned and trauma informed, PreK-12th grade Social Emotional Learning (SEL) curriculum, and;
  • Maine School Safety Center (MSSC): contacts and resources to help develop a safe school infrastructure delivering high quality, up-to-date best practices, procedures, training, technical assistance, and support to Maine Schools.

Maine’s 3rd Annual Opioid Response Summit Highlights Maine DOE’s Commitment to SEL in Schools

Governor Janet T. Mills’ 3rd Annual Opioid Response Summit was on held on July 15th this year and reminded the public of the importance of social emotional learning and trauma informed approaches in Maine schools, highlighting the work of the Maine Department of Education’s development of SEL4ME, a social emotional learning (SEL) platform for Maine educators and learners.

The summit featured numerous speakers and keynote addresses including those of Dr. Larry McCullough and Mark Lefebvre from the Pine Tree Institute who led a seminar called, “Preventing Substance Use Disorders by Mitigating Adverse Childhood Experiences.” This discussion showed the strong link between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and opioid addiction.

Dr. McCullough highlighted the importance of positive childhood experiences to combat the correlation between ACEs and opioid addiction. Further explaining that positive childhood experiences can be created for at-risk youth through feeling a sense of belonging in high school, having nonparent adults as role models for students, and community traditions. The seminar dug into the essential parts of community support, including a key component as social emotional and trauma informed learning, which has been shown to strongly correlate with less youth involvement in drugs.

Representatives Gabe O’Brien and Nina Misra from the Maine Youth Action Network corroborated Dr. McCullough’s presentation with their own, entitled: “Promoting Health Equity and Prevention through Youth Engagement Best Practices.” O’Brien and Misra focused on community and environmental conditions. Community conditions Misra defined as, “conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age.” Educational environments in which social emotional learning occurs within the classroom were encouraged as a best practice. Misra and O’Brien described a classroom that utilizes SEL as, “creating a space where young people feel seen and heard.”

Social emotional learning has been a priority for the Maine Department of Education, championed through the SEL4ME curriculum. SEL4ME strives for students to learn, “skills for self-confidence, perseverance and academic success as well as [become] positive members in their communities.”

The Annual Opioid Response Summit confirmed the importance of Maine DOE’s commitment to SEL as a critical role in mitigating the crisis. Dr. Jessica Pollard, Director of the Maine Office of Behavioral Health stated at the summit that newly approved funds entering into the DOE for opioid crisis work (much of it heading towards SEL professional development and training) will mean “fewer Maine youth will ever start misusing substances.”

To watch the entirety of the Summit, please click here. For more information about the Maine DOE SEL4ME platform visit: www.maine.gov/doe/sel/sel4me or contact Kellie Bailey, Social Emotional Learning/ Restorative Practice Specialist at kellie.bailey@maine.gov

REGISTER NOW: School Resource Officer Summit 2021

The School Resource Officer summit will be taking place August 10th and and 11th at Windham High School from 9am to 4pm EST (both in person and virtual options available).

August 10th will feature a keynote address from the Restorative Justice Board titled “A Showcase of Options for Thinking about Restorative Justice and Community Impact.” August 11th will feature Lt. Carlos Camacho from the Nashua, New Hampshire Police Department.

The summit will also feature numerous breakout sessions:

• Racial & Implicit Bias; a History of Racism- Trooper Elgin Physic
• EOPs- Melissa Coden
• Social Emotional Learning- Bear Shea
• Behavioral Threat Assessment- Dr. Karen Barnes
• Adverse Childhood Experiences 101 & 102- Ruby Parker
• Trauma and Professional Resiliencey- Allegra Hirsch
• Effective Police Interactions with Youth /Mirror- Mirror Project

Light breakfast items will be available both days for in-person participants at 8:15 AM and lunch will be at 12 PM with vegetarian or protein choices.

Please register for both in person and virtual options. Virtual participants will be capped at 500 people. If you are attending virtually, this link will enable you to choose the breakout session you registered for.

Lessons from the Field Webinar Series – Returning to School: Strategies for Supporting Staff

The U.S. Department of Education is hosting a webinar series to support educational settings in safely sustaining or returning to in-person instruction. The series features lessons learned and best practices from faculty, staff, schools, districts, institutions of higher education, early childhood education providers, and other places of educational instruction describing approaches to operating during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On behalf of the U.S. Department of Education (ED), Office of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Office of Safe and Supportive Schools, the National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments (NCSSLE) invites you to join the next webinar, Returning to School: Strategies for Supporting Staff on Wednesday, July 28th, 2021 from 3:00pm to 4:15pm EST.

Please join us as we explore information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Department of Education on supporting staff health and wellness as educators return to school this Fall. Following the federal agency updates, field-based practitioners will share strategies they have found effective to support staff wellness.

The speakers and panelists will include Christian Rhodes, Chief of Staff, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, U.S. Department of Education; Jessica Cardichon, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Federal Policy, U.S. Department of Education; Jyotsna Blackwell, Public Health Advisor, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Sangeeta Parikshak, Behavioral Health Lead, Office of Head Start, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; and Kathy McHugh, panelist, Delran, NJ.

This event will reference the following resources, which we encourage you to access in advance of the webinar to inform participation:

National Association of School Psychologists: From the Return to School Special Series

American School Counselor Association (staff wellness is included in these documents)

National Association of State Boards of Education

National Education Association

Other resources from CDC

For your reference, slides for this presentation will be posted on the event webpage on the day of the event. This event will be recorded and posted to the event webpage a day after the webinar.

You must register to participate in this presentation.

Please contact NCSSLE if you have any questions. NCSSLE looks forward to sharing this information with you and hearing from you about the important work you are doing in your schools, communities, and states to meet the needs of your students and staff as they return to in-person learning.

WEBINAR: Strategies for Safely Returning to School: The Latest Federal Guidance

The U.S. Department of Education is hosting a webinar series to support educational settings in safely sustaining or returning to in-person instruction. The series features the latest federal guidance, and lessons learned and best practices from faculty, staff, schools, districts, institutions of higher education, early childhood education providers, and other places of educational instruction describing approaches to operating during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On behalf of the U.S. Department of Education (ED), Office of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Office of Safe and Supportive Schools, the National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments (NCSSLE) invites you to join the next webinar, Strategies for Safely Returning to School: The Latest Federal Guidance.

Date: Wednesday, July 14, 2021
Time: 3:00 – 4:00 pm EST

Please join us for this informative webinar featuring updates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and ED on preparing to return to school for the 2021-22 school year, including the latest on mitigation strategies, as we continue to contend with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Following the federal agency updates, practitioner questions will be addressed by the CDC and ED staff to allow field personnel to better understand and ultimately operationalize guidance.

Speakers/Panelists

  • Christian Rhodes, Moderator, Chief of Staff, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, U.S. Department of Education
  • Neha Cramer: Lead, Schools Unit, Community Intervention and Critical Populations Task Force at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  • Jessica McKinney: Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development (OPEPD), U.S. Department of Education Related Documents

This event will reference the following resources, which we encourage you to access in advance of the webinar to inform participation:

For your reference, slides for this presentation will be posted on the event webpage on the day of the event.

Registration – You must register to participate in this presentation. Register Here!

Please contact NCSSLE if you have any questions. We look forward to sharing this information with you and hearing from you about the important work you are doing in your schools, communities, and states to meet the needs of your students and staff as they return to in-person learning.

SAVE THE DATE: School Resource Officer Summit Aug 10th & 11th

Save the date for the School Resource Officer (SRO) Summit offered both in-person at Windham High School and virtually online. This opportunity is a collaboration between the Maine Department of Education’s Maine School Safety Center, the Maine Department of Corrections, Maine Juvenile Justice Advisory Group, and Restorative Justice Project Maine.

The summit will be held from 9:00am – 4:30pm on August 10th and 11th (doors open at 8:15am for check-in). Coffee and pastries will be served as well as a lunch for in-person participants. This opportunity is available to Maine school resource officers as well as district and school administrators, staff, and educators.

Key Note Addresses:

August 10th – Restorative Justice Board: A Showcase of Options for Thinking about RJ and Community Impact

August 11th – Lt. Carlos Camacho, Nashua, NH Police Department

Breakout Topics:

  • Racial Disparity & Equality
  • MOUs
  • EOPs
  • Social Emotional Learning
  • Behavioral Threat Assessment
  • Adverse Childhood Experiences 101 &102
  • Effective Police Interactions with Youth /Mirror Mirror Project

Registration link and further information will be forthcoming for both in person and virtual options.

Download the SAVE THE DATE flyer here.

For further questions, contact the Maine School Safety Center.

RSU 40 Teachers Find Connection with Students Through Poetry – a Podcast by 2020 Lincoln County Teacher of the Year

In the spring semester of 2021, RSU 40 English teacher Heather Webster embarked on a project to encourage her students to utilize their creative side. She guided students through completing an “I am” poem following a standard structure- each line begins with a statement about oneself. She chose this creative writing journey for her students because “I am” poems give space for students to be open, honest, and vulnerable with their teacher and classmates, a deep connection that has been missing for many students and teachers throughout the rollercoaster of changes brought on by the pandemic.

One day, walking down the hall shortly after starting the poetry unit, Webster noticed a wall of self-portrait. She went to take a closer look and realized that Brooke Holland, RSU 40 art teacher, had beat her to the “I am” poems with her students (many of which overlapped with Webster’s students). Webster was immediately impressed with the work of the students. “I realized that the poems demonstrated wonderful common threads from our students’ experiences,” Webster stated. More specifically, Webster was awed at the commonality between each students’ pandemic experience, which they shared in their poems.

Reflecting on the start of the COVID19 pandemic, Webster remembers how hard it was to get students to participate and also reflects on how silent students became. She met with her colleague Holland and discussed how impressed they were with their students. After a year and a half of silent students, seeing the students’ creative sides and hearing personal reflections on the pandemic was so enlightening for both teachers. The “I am” poem project gave both teachers insight into their students’ lives over the past year. Both teachers had been feeling distant from their students over the course of the pandemic, but this project allowed them to know their students on a personal level once again. Webster notes that after a year of non-stop discussion of learning loss, “[The students] will be okay. It will be okay.”

Heather Webster was the 2020 Lincoln County Teacher of the Year and a Maine teacher of the Year Finalist. Her podcast on the experience of the “I am” poem can be listened to below.

Non Fiction Final Project

This article was written by Maine DOE Intern Clio Bersani in collaboration with RSU 40 as part of the Maine Schools Sharing Success Campaign. To submit a story or an idea email it to Rachel at rachel.paling@maine.gov

July 2021 School Safety and Security Professional Development Offerings

To allow as much flexibility as possible for school staff to take a break from the incredibly difficult school year, yet still have the opportunity to continue to learn about school safety and security, the Maine Department of Education (DOE) Maine School Safety Center (MSSC) has assembled a relaxed, go at your own pace, and self-select menu of short professional development sessions (30-45 minutes each)!

The Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools Technical Assistance Center (REMS TA) has archived several school safety asynchronous sessions.  Participants can register through REMS, complete any or all sessions listed below in any order, and can then  complete a brief MSSC survey on each completed session.  Once the survey is completed, a one-contact hour certificate will be made available to participants for each session completed.

Following is the link to, description of, and survey for each session:

Developing Emergency Operations Plans (EOPs) K-12 101

A high-quality school EOP is adequate, feasible, acceptable, complete, and compliant with state and local requirements. To ensure that EOPs meet these criteria, school planning teams must work collaboratively to determine EOP goals and objectives. That is why the planning process is so important. Although processes should be adapted based on the unique characteristics of the school, school district and situation, teams can use this session to learn about all aspects of plan development, assessment, review, implementation, and maintenance.

Learn more and take the course

Survey and certificate link

School EOPs In-Depth: Developing a Bereavement and Loss Annex

This session has been designed to help you understand the importance of including plans for responding to bereavement and loss in a high-quality school emergency operations plan (EOP) and common manifestations among children related to bereavement and loss. When you are finished with this session, you will be able to assemble the appropriate team for developing the bereavement and loss plan; identify and incorporate responses to bereavement and loss into appropriate annexes; identify and consider the role of developmental factors in early elementary, school-aged children, and adolescents in creating your plan that includes establishment of a crisis response team, as well as appropriate policies and procedures; and conduct stakeholder training related to bereavement and loss.

Learn more and take the course

Survey and certificate link

School EOPs In-Depth: Developing a COOP Annex

This session has been designed to help you learn about the Continuity of Operations (COOP) Functional Annex, or “COOP Annex.” When you are finished with this session, you will be able to define and explain the purpose of the COOP Annex; identify the types of circumstances that lead to COOP Annex activation; develop a COOP Annex as aligned with steps 3 and 4 of the recommended six-step planning process; and understand how to revise and implement COOP planning as aligned with steps 5 and 6 of the recommended six-step planning process.

Learn more and take the course

Survey and certificate link

School EOPs In-Depth: Developing a Food Contamination Annex

This session has been designed to help you learn how to incorporate food safety planning into a school Emergency Operations Plan (EOP). When you’ve completed this session, you will be able to explain the purpose of the Food Contamination Annex; assemble the appropriate team for developing the annex; develop the annex to include procedures for addressing food contamination and food recall; conduct staff training and exercises related to the annex; and use data and techniques (e.g., after action reports) to revise and maintain the annex.

Learn more and take the course

Survey and certificate link

School EOPs In-Depth: Planning for Infectious Diseases

This session has been designed to help you learn how to incorporate infectious disease planning into a school Emergency Operations Plan (EOP). When you are finished with this course, you will be able to define and explain the purpose of the Infectious Disease Annex; identify the types of circumstances that lead to Infectious Disease Annex activation; explain the functions and recommended contents of an Infectious Disease Annex; explain the integration of infectious disease planning with relevant functional annexes; and understand how to revise and implement infectious disease planning, as aligned with steps 5 and 6 of the recommended six-step planning process.

Learn more and take the course

Survey and certificate link

School EOPs In-Depth: Planning for Large Events

This session has been designed to help you define large events and the special vulnerabilities they pose to schools, understand planning considerations unique to large events, update the other annexes in your Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) to account for large events, conduct staff and stakeholder training and exercises related to large events, and use data and techniques (e.g., after action reports) to revise and maintain your EOP.

Learn more and take the course

Survey and certificate link

For further questions, please contact the Maine School Safety Center.