The following information was sent to families via SchoolMessenger on Friday, May 10 with the subject "Updates on Safety - WJMS". The content has been formatted for the web.
West Jefferson Families,
We want to continue to update you on our safety issue from April. At this time, we have still not been able to determine the author/s of the note found in the classroom. There has been no new information from students, staff, or even from anonymous sources.
However, students are listening to our advice about reporting bullying and other safety concerns through school incident reports, emails to staff, and Safe2Tell. That is wonderful as it shows a growing commitment to help in making West Jeff Middle a safe place to be.
Today we received three Safe2Tell reports within a 30 minute time period. Two of them referenced mean and negative comments about staff members but no specific names of the individuals were mentioned. One of them referenced a specific group of students who were bullying other
students. The reporter stated that they were worried that one of them might bring a weapon to school.
We immediately started following our defined protocol and our district's Department of School Safety & Security arrived quickly to help interview the named students and conduct searches. While the reference to a weapon was determined to be unfounded, the administration will continue to follow up on the accusation of bullying.
It can be unsettling to think about the issues of safety in our schools. As the administrators of West Jefferson Middle School, we are committed to doing more to communicate issues and updates so that families
and students can feel safer in our school. We are proud of all the individuals that are reporting concerns so we can follow up in a timely manner. Thank you.
A reminder – Any potential safety concerns should be reported, no matter how insignificant you believe it might be. There are many anonymous and safe ways that you can report information, like emailing a staff member or using the Safe2Tell program to report safety concerns
anonymously at 877-542-7233, online at https://safe2tell.org/, or the app (iOS | Android). It is with your help that we can keep West Jeff Middle as a safe place to learn. It takes all of us, working together to ensure the safety of our students and school community.
Kim Halingstad
Principal
Justin Squires
Assistant Principal