Safety

As of March 4, 2024 the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) Covid-19 guidelines have been updated and the BCD guidance for staff and students continues to align with these recommendations. The guidance now aligns with that of other respiratory viruses, including flu and RSV.

1- Stay home until your symptoms improve    AND

2- Have been fever free (without medications) for 24-hours

 

When you go back to your normal activities, take added precautions over the next five days, such as taking additional steps for cleaner air, hygiene, masks, physical distancing, and/or testing when you will be around other people indoors.

 

As always, when you are sick, please stay home, regardless of COVID-19 status. Refer to CDPHE's  How Sick is Too Sick for illness guidelines related to COVID-19 and other illnesses for school attendance.

BCD carefully screens all employees. We require background checks and fingerprinting for all employees as part of our hiring process and employees are rescreened through a comprehensive rescreening process.

In addition, we require background checks for regular parent volunteers. To comply with BCD policy, parent volunteers must get background checks as well.

All visitors to BCD must sign in at our front desk and receive a visitor's badge. Guests new to BCD must show identification as a part of our check in process. Similarly, unfamiliar persons (i.e. a new nanny or a grandparent) given permission to pick up a child from school must show identification before a child is released.

With attention to health and safety in mind, we train all BCD employees in health and safety protocols and procedures on an annual basis prior to the start of the school year. These trainings include the following: emergency medication administration (e.g. Epi-Pen, inhaler, etc.) and universal precautions which are covered by our health nurse consultant; and, a review of school safety drills, crisis management, and emergency response plans which are covered by our Head of School and Administrative Leadership Team. In addition, our health nurse consultant trains and delegates several employees in non-emergency medication administration and many faculty and staff hold certification in CPR/AED and first aid. Training in CPR/AED and first aid is mandatory for BCD's physical education teachers and coaching staff.

As a critical component of our attention to health and safety, BCD maintains an "allergy aware" campus and strives to keep students with life threatening food allergies safe. Being allergy aware means that faculty and staff are vigilant in ensuring that children are safe. All BCD faculty and staff are informed of children on campus with life-threatening food allergies and the exact location of their emergency medications.

Furthermore, all BCD employees are trained in how to recognize and prevent child sexual abuse. BCD also offers safety and assault prevention workshops for both students and parents on campus through CAP (Child Assault Prevention) and well-known specialists such as Feather Berkower. In addition, BCD participates in Safe2Tell, a program that allows students to report threatening behaviors or activities endangering themselves or someone they know through an anonymous hotline.

BCD has a thorough crisis management and emergency response plan. This plan is posted at all building entrances and exits and near all BCD phones. In addition, all faculty and staff members have a personal copy of this plan and each classroom has a copy kept in the emergency backpack located behind the classroom door. Our crisis management and emergency response plan is also posted on our portal for parents.

BCD's Administrative Leadership Team conducts an annual review of BCD's Crisis Management and Emergency Response Plan. In 2023, BCD underwent a comprehensive safety and security audit with the Emergency Response Consultant from the Colorado School Safety Resource Center to see where we could improve school security. The resulting analysis provided feedback on our existing policies and led us to adopt other measures. We will continue to conduct comprehensive reviews of our safety plans on a regular basis.