Erie 1 BOCES Staff Collaborate to Promote Safety

When it comes to ensuring the safety of students and staff across Erie 1 BOCES, it’s all hands on deck.

“Everybody in every building has a role to play in safety,” said Dennis Kwaczala, senior coordinator for Erie 1 BOCES’ Health Safety and Risk Management office.

Those roles can come in the plans developed to meet state requirements, and in the day-to-day actions of staff to be aware of their surroundings. In an emergency, that advanced preparation can be critical.

“You have to have people in place ready to roll to get everything done,” Kwaczala said. “All those pieces have to work together.”

Organizationally, Erie 1 BOCES is required to develop a safety plan each year, which is shared publicly. In addition to that plan, each building with the organization is required to maintain a safety plan. As a part of those efforts, buildings within the organization have staff committees and teams in areas like safety, response and recovery.

At the building level, the work of those organizations, along with collaborations in the building and around the community, can be critical in addressing issues proactively.

“We always refer to school safety as a 'We' issue,” said Lucas Vogel, principal at the Potter Career and Technical Center and head of the building’s Emergency Response Team. “It's not your thing to fix or solve, or my thing. It's our thing.”

Vogel noted the center’s varied classroom spaces in areas like building trades, culinary arts and welding create unique safety challenges, and that the team’s members represent different areas of the building.

“We get optics and feedback that encompass the entire building,” Vogel said. 

The center is also supported by school resource officers from the West Seneca Police Department, which have provided feedback for planning and drills that Vogel said “helped us look at those events differently.”

Vogel also credited the center’s teachers and students for staying aware of potential issues.

“For students, there are times that they'll see or hear things or encounter areas before the adults do,” he said. “As a credit to the teachers, that's a part of the dialogue they have with students in their own classrooms.”

More information about Erie 1 BOCES’ Health Safety and Risk Management office can be found at https://www.e1b.org/en/administrative-services/health-safety-and-risk-management.aspx.