Communication follow-up regarding Durgee incident

Dear Parents, Guardians, and Staff,

I wanted to reach out to families this afternoon to thank you for your patience and understanding during the brief lockdown this morning at Durgee Junior High School. As a parent, I understand the level of fear, anxiety and uncertainty that comes with receiving a phone call or message that your child’s school is on a lockdown. The incident this morning was completely resolved in approximately 5 minutes after the lockdown was called, but unfortunately, the brief high stress situation was complicated due to a ParentSquare outage that impacted notifications to families.

The ParentSquare outage, which was due to a widespread Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage, impacted our ability to quickly send out a phone call, as this feature was temporarily unavailable. It also caused our text messages, emails and app notifications to be delayed. We were able to post messages that were viewable in the ParentSquare app, on our website and on our district Facebook page. I strongly encourage all families to use the ParentSquare app and to check it during an emergency. Under our district safety plan – What Parents Can Do in an Emergency – we encourage families to not rely on one form of communication for information from the school district. Check our website, social media, ParentSquare, in addition to your phone and email. We strive to keep families informed with updates as soon as they become available. 

As with every emergency situation, our staff is continuing to reflect on the safety protocols that were used and how we can continue to make improvements to our procedures to keep our schools and district safe. 

The Baldwinsville Police Department continues to investigate the threat made by the student in question. The school takes matters of this nature extremely seriously and will be following our Code of Conduct.

We would like to thank our partners at the Baldwinsville Police Department for their support and quick investigation of this matter.

Sincerely,

Dr. Joseph M. DeBarbieri

Superintendent of Schools