Safety Protocols
ISM staff are trained on many safety aspects throughout the year using our online training platform, Vector Solutions. Coaching and Safety staff also review injury training, such as concussion awareness. This training covers the following essential points. If you would like access to the training, please get in touch with the office manager for access to our training account.
Our Safety and Concussion Protocols help staff follow standard procedures in determining the severity of an injury and the required level of emergency care. The following concussion awareness, response, and management poster overviews those steps. In addition, we encourage our families to review the information on this link regarding concussion care, especially when to recognize if an ambulance is required.
The California Education Code requires that all school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools annually update a Comprehensive School Safety Plan (CSSP) by March 1. The ISM CSSP references multiple safety- and wellbeing-related documents, which become part of the CSSP by citation. Though we do not publish or publicly share a few CSSP components due to sensitive or confidential content, we maintain them as part of our internal operational CSSP, made available to staff and safety partners as appropriate. We do publicly publish the vast majority of the CSSP component documents on the ISM Official Documents website, including the following:
We maintain vital partnerships with Monterey Peninsula Unified School District as our facility provider and charter authorizer; CharterSAFE, the joint powers authority we contract for insurance and risk management services; the City of Seaside police and fire departments; an expanding network of school district contacts overseeing health, safety, and risk management; and organizations providing valuable web-based and in-person training on a broad range of safety topics. The field of school safety is continually evolving, and by working with these partners, ISM continues to deepen its knowledge and implementation of relevant safety practices. This has led to wide praise and recognition from these partners and other observers for our thoughtful and thorough safety planning and techniques.
Part of being a vigilant community is teaching our students how to be “upstanders” rather than bystanders. We promote the belief that students can and should make a difference in stopping bullying in our community. Along with our anti-bullying policy, we also have an anti-bullying curriculum implemented through all grade levels. These anti-bullying lessons are part of our social-emotional-health (SEH) approach, modeled after responsive classroom techniques. Our school counselor visits classrooms throughout the year to implement the anti-bullying curriculum and follow up with students regularly.