Dr. James Mapes, District Superintendent,
Nassau BOCES
 I
am deeply proud of the fact that Nassau BOCES has led the creation and development of the Nassau Schools
Emergency Planning Consortium. The partnerships that have
been formed will yield many benefits, but the most
significant is our ability to better serve and protect the
children and families of Nassau County.
The primary purpose of this grant-funded project is to
train safety teams in our 56 component school districts. The
Nassau BOCES Health and Safety Training and Information
Service will bring together experts to teach these teams
what their responsibilities are under the SAVE legislation.
Additional training will be conducted with
school-district facility directors on safety audits and
hazard assessments, with building principals and assistant
principals on multi-hazard response and incident command,
and with public information officers on dealing with the
media during an emergency.
Another component of this project is to strengthen
communications among Nassau BOCES, the 56 school districts,
and Nassau County agencies, such as the Office of Emergency
Management. This website facilitates communication
by serving as a source of both long-term and late-breaking
information.
The Consortium has also begun to integrate the school
community with an existing trunk-radio system that is used
by County agencies, police departments, fire departments,
hospitals, and other emergency responders. This system is
not dependent on phone lines, and batteries keep the
communication lines open if electric service is
interrupted.
As an educator, there is nothing more important to me
than the safety and well-being of children. Thanks to the cooperation of our partners in this
endeavor, Nassau BOCES will play a key role in helping our
56 component school districts keep our children safe during
emergencies.
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