Dear Schodack CSD Community,
Next Monday morning (October 30), all buildings in the Schodack Central School District will be conducting a lockdown drill. All New York State Schools are required by law to hold a certain number of these safety drills annually to ensure students and faculty/staff are prepared in the event of an active threat inside the building. Each building’s drill will last approximately 25-30 minutes. If you drive by one of the buildings on Monday morning while a drill is taking place you will see police vehicles on site since we work with law enforcement to conduct these types of drills.
We will announce over the PA system that the drill has begun and everyone in the building will then follow the lockdown protocols of remaining quiet and out of sight until it is complete. Police officers will be going around the building during the drill to inspect how well protocols are being followed and to take note of what, if anything, could be improved.
This will be the first lockdown drill in Schodack schools since the swatting incident on March 30, 2023, that caused Maple Hill to go into a real lockdown. While the reason for that lockdown ended up being a false threat, it was nonetheless a confusing and frightening day for many in our district. Given the incident that took place in March, we wanted to provide as much notice as possible to our school families should they want to use time over the weekend to discuss or prepare students for the upcoming lockdown drill on Monday morning.