Safety efforts earn DCS safety excellence award
DCS is one of 112 school districts and BOCES in the state to receive the 2011 School Safety Excellence Award from the Utica National Insurance Group.
The district received a certificate from the insurance company to commemorate the district's safety efforts.
"Safety and health concerns are a priority in our school districts. Whether we are parents seeing our child off on the school bus, teachers charged with the responsibility of educating, or staff who maintain the facility, there is a common thread of attention to safety," says program initiator and Director of Risk Management Technical and Field Services Jeff Kristoff. "It is with great pleasure that we recognize those schools that not only take safety to heart, but who go above and beyond to provide a safe, healthy, and focused culture for learning.
Utica National's School Safety Excellence Award Program helps participating schools enhance safety through measurable assessment. The program evaluates schools with their own transportation on 17 categories, schools with contract transportation on 16 categories and BOCES on 1 categories, from playground safety to indoor air quality, with specific, quantifiable data-gathering surveys. "They payoff goes beyond recognition--if our program is followed properly, it should enable schools to pinpoint specific threats to safety," says Kristoff.