Palomares Parent Teacher Club

Health and Safety Committee

Coordinator: Karen Drumm

The committee is responsible for emergency preparedness on campus. They annually review the plan and coordinate with the school district to ensure compliance of laws and regulations. An annual inventory of emergency supplies is done and a budget and purchase requests are presented to the PPTC.

The time commitment will be a couple of days a year for members.

The Coordinator Guide can be downloaded in MS Word format or viewed online below. All of the guides share a common Forward.

Health and Safety Committee Description

This committee is responsible for promoting the concept of Health and Safety at Palomares as well as maintaining the emergency supplies for the school. These efforts can take many different directions based on what the committee members feel is important and necessary for the school. Purchases will be reimbursed from the committee's budget.

Structure

This committee doesn't need to be a large one as the work done by this committee consists of initial inventory activities and restocking supplies as soon as possible at the beginning of the year. After this work is done most of the rest of the work to be done during the year can be more of a preventative or monitoring/maintenance nature done by a core group of volunteers.

Since this has been basically an inactive committee, it is suggested that the structure this year could consist of the Coordinator and perhaps a group of 6-8 main committee members. If needed, perhaps there will be times where more volunteers could help with a one time activity. Next year, based on how this year unfolds, the structure can be reevaluated.

Time Commitment

This committee is a good committee for parents who have limited time available to volunteer since this is not a labor intensive committee. This is also a good committee for parents who have specific interests/skills in safety and health related activities.

Duties

The duties of the Health and Safety Committee encompass everything related to maintaining a safe environment at Palomares Elementary. Since this committee has basically been an inactive committee for the past several years, the Coordinator and committee members this year can start from scratch and determine what duties are essential and what duties are perhaps more helpful and would be nice to do based on the committee members interests and time available.

Some duties would include the following but is not limited to these items.

Inventory the Emergency Supplies in the shed to provide a clear idea of exactly what is on hand for all students and staff of the school.
Use the information provided by the Castro Valley School District to determine what additional items are needed to maintain a safe environment for the students (emergency supplies).
Conduct a safety audit of the school - classrooms, playground, bathrooms and all other areas that students and staff frequent, to determine if the school is a safe place. If there are areas that need improvement, determine what should be done to fix things.

As the Committee has meetings, they should determine what additional activities can be done.

Operation

It is up to the discretion of the Coordinator as to how to run this committee, based on the number of members, their interests and skills, and their time commitment levels.

Schedule

The specific schedule will vary slightly from year to year. The committee should meet as early as possible in the school year to set up their objectives for the year and when things should be done. An inventory of the Emergency Supplies should be done as soon as possible in September.

Resources

In the past few years, emergency student kits have been purchased from this company:

Simpler Life Emergency Provisions, Inc.
2035 Park Avenue, Suite 1
Redlands, CA 92373

(909) 798-8108 * FAX (909) 798-8718
1 (800) 266-PREP (7737)
www.simplerlife.com

This company also seems to be a good resource for other types of safety/emergency products.