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Student Safety- Outside the Classroom
On Thursday, two School Site Assistants (SSA’s) wearing vibrant orange reflective vests carefully placed entry and exit signage at assigned gates throughout the Stella Brockman campus. They wore lanyards that dangled identification badges, a twoway radio clipped to their person, and had a set of keys that accesses the school’s gateways and main buildings.
SSA should really stand for Student Safety Always.
As they continued to affix signage, one of them described a gateway as her designated area— an entry and exit route intended for first grade and county students she is to supervise.
“The primary role of an SSA is to provide student safety and security when outside the classroom,” said Sherry Scharmann, Human Resources Supervisor.
Scharmann also serves on MUSD’s Workplace Illness Prevention command team as the key individual representing Human Resources. A team formed with District stakeholders who initiate internal protocols and devise District mitigation efforts and procedures based on current conditions.
Since the turn of Phase 1.5 and now Phase 2 (MUSD’s phased inperson learning models), Scharmann explained that SSA’s are taking safety and security up several notches. This group of classified personnel will be reinforcing the comprehensive COVID-19 state and local health guidelines as part of the District’s 2020-2021 Return to School plan.
On campus and outside the classroom, SSA’s will safeguard proper social distancing as students access restrooms and play during recess, face mask compliance upon campus entry, observance of appropriate directional pathways, encourage healthy hygiene habits, and all other critical behaviors that help students protect themselves and others. At high schools, SSA’s will likely verify student selfscreening by viewing a student’s symptom check survey result at campus entry points. And while a student may have entered campus with an approved symptom-check survey result, a student could become symptomatic while on campus. In this situation, it is the SSA that will thoughtfully guide the student to the health/isolation room where he/she will be examined by a school nurse/ designee.
Scharmann explained that SSA’s will still enforce more common duties such as safe routes to and from school. Multiple times a day, SSA’s will guard student street crossing, retrieve students with special needs as they arrive on school busses, or monitoring parking lot safety before and after school. In Phase 2, these duties have heightened as well with extra precautions in student drop off.
“Their role is truly an integral part of our team to get our students back to school safely,” said Scharmann.
