Security & Safety Matters at CCA!

Eleven Key Areas Our Security Addresses

1. Training: We believe that the first and best line of defense is a well-trained, highly alert school staff and student body. Therefore, we have extensive training of school administrators, teachers, secretaries, custodians, maintenance workers, and bus drivers, etc. on school security, school threat assessment, and school emergency best practices. We have the best security camera equipment that money can buy. However, we do not rely upon it but upon our highly trained staff and faculty. Cameras are a supplement to but not a substitute for CCA’s comprehensive school safety program.
2. Cameras: Forty-eight to be exact, have been installed throughout the buildings and campus. There is constant surveillance. We are keenly aware that equipment is only as good as the human element behind it. Therefore, three large monitors, pictured here, are prominently displayed and in direct line of sight of the Cubby Care Director, principal and administrator. Two additional monitors, one of which is targeted at high traffic areas of the school is on constant display during operating hours.
3. Instant Communications: All rooms have panic buttons that can be pushed allowing teachers, staff, and students instant communication with the office. Once button is pressed, system will beep in office and on the equipment we can see an indicator light for the room in which the call button was pushed. The occupants in the room need not say a word for us to know the location where the panic or call button was pressed.
4. Secure Buildings: All doors are locked, except front entrance, and many have alarms that will sound if the door is opened for any reason. Parents, visitors, and students arriving during the day can only enter through the front entrance. All visitors must sign-in and wear a visitor’s badge while at school. Unless someone has a legitimate reason to be at CCA, they will not get past the front desk.
5. Practice. Active shooter, intruder, tornado, fire and other emergency drills are routinely held, some coordinated with fire department and law enforcement.
6. School Crisis Team: CCA has designated first responders within its staff and faculty and this team regularly meets to discuss CCA’s crisis management plans.
7. Sheriff’s Office and First Responders. Routinely drills are held that involve the sheriff’s office and first responders.
8. Entrance/Exits Numbered: CCA has prominently numbered each entrance/exit door so first responders can easily identify specific entrances/exists when called to respond to an incident and/or to manage a tactical response.
9. KNOX Box: In our KNOX Box, CCA has provided the police and the fire department with updated floor plans for their reference for tactical responses.
10. Evacuation: Caanan Free Will Baptist Church, two-tenths of a mile from the school on Kershaw Camden Highway, is the evacuation site should CCA ever have to evacuate its campus. The church has been so kind as to allow us to keep a key to it and we have a fully supplied evacuation kit should an evacuation occur. Furthermore, we have the emergency contact information supplied by parents for each student in a binder at the front desk that we will take along with the emergency evacuation kit.
11. Communication Plans for Parents: These plans for contacting parents have been revised, beefed up and are routinely reviewed. We have the means to send out a blast that would contact all parents and emergency contact persons at once.