Safety and Security on Campus

Your Child's Safety is our Number One Priority

At Saint Joseph Elementary School, we take measures to assure the safety of our students, faculty, and staff. The campus perimeter is secured throughout the school day. Saint Joseph Elementary School maintains a closed campus policy. All gates remain closed throughout the school day. All visitors, guests, and volunteers at Saint Joseph Elementary School are required to report to the school office, sign in and secure a Visitor Badge before proceeding to classrooms or areas of responsibility.

Fire drills, earthquake drills and intruder drills take place on a monthly safety drill schedule throughout the school year. In addition, a full school evacuation and release to parents and guardians is practiced every two years.

Saint Joseph Elementary School adheres to the mandates of the Safe Environment for Children Program of the Diocese of Oakland. Volunteers are screened according to the provisions of Megan’s Law; they are "Live Scan" fingerprinted and take on-line training through "Virtus-Online Training," a program and service of the National Catholic Risk Retention Group. All who minister (parents, employees and volunteers) must complete the training and be fingerprinted before they are permitted to volunteer in any capacity in classrooms or school-sponsored programs and activities.

Parent Alerts

In the event of an emergency or unexpected closure of the school, parents/legal guardians will be contacted through our SIS (Student Information System) PowerSchool, using School Messenger. Our school has the ability to send instantaneous notifications to our school community. This service allows us to send alerts as needed for any incident ranging from in-school emergencies to school closings, cancellations or schedule changes.

We are able to send notifications via:
Text messages to cell phones and PDAs
Voice calls to work, home and cell phones
Emails to multiple addresses

A Shared Responsibility

Parents, for our children's safety, you must complete the online safety training at www.virtusonline.org prior to chaperoning any field trips, class party or volunteering for yard duty, etc. At the conclusion of the online training, please print copies of the certificate for your records and a copy to the school office prior to any volunteer activity.

Preventing & Reporting Child Abuse

In 1963, California enacted the first law in the United States requiring the mandatory reporting of child abuse. By 1967, all 50 states had similar laws. These laws seek to protect children by establishing a legal duty for individuals in certain occupations to report abuse - and imposing penalties for failing to make a report. These laws also authorize other adults to contact the authorities to report problems and establish the immunities and responsibilities of these "ethical" or "permissive" reporters.

Children in Saint Joseph Elementary School and Parish, follow the provisions of Virtus Online Training. This entails taking a training course and providing a certificate of successful completion.