By: Dean Koppelman

 Dec 17, 2012

Valley City, ND  —  As Superintendent of Schools, I felt a need to write all of you in regards to the tragic event that took place Friday in an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. I am certain all of us are feeling a deep sense of sadness with the tragic loss of 20 elementary age children and a number of staff members in the school. I know my heart just sank when I became aware of this news.

I would like to remind you and reassure you that the safety of all of our children is a top priority for our school officials. I do believe that our schools and schools across our country are still one of the safest places for children to be. We have a safety plan in place at each of our buildings that would help us to deal with such a situation if it were to occur. These safety plans are reviewed and revised if needed on a regular basis.

Our Building Principals and I had recently met with our new Chief of Police and one of the items we discussed was our safety plans and working together with our law enforcement to review the plans we have for each building and look at training for our law enforcement in each of our buildings.

We have great teachers, administrators, school counselors, and support staff, that are more than willing to help your student if they may be having questions or difficulties in regards to this matter. I believe if students are expressing concern, one of the most important things we can do as parents and staff is to reassure our students that their school is a safe place to be and the school has plans in place to do everything it can to keep everyone safe.

To our parents, please feel free to contact your child’s classroom teacher, the building principal, or the school counselor if your child is having struggles over this incident and you would like your child to receive some assistance at school. If there are health-related issues or other issues in a child’s life that can be affecting them personally and affecting their learning, I believe it is important to make school staff aware so we can do everything we can to help a child. I offer this as advice as I know all of us that work in the schools want to help each and every child be as successful as possible and we want to work with our parents to make this possible.

I would ask that we please keep the community of Newtown, Connecticut along with all of the families there who have suffered a loss of a child or loved one in our thoughts and prayers as there will be many tough days ahead. I am certain the thoughts and prayers that are being sent from around the world will be a tremendous help.

Dean Koppelman, Superintendent of Valley City Public Schools.