Tuolumne County Grand Jury
• 2022-2023
• Agency Response
Jamestown School District*
⚠️ Translation Notice: This content has been automatically translated. The original English text is the official version. Translation may contain errors.
⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
Findings and Recommendations 1 findings
F3
Page 1
Jamestown Elementary's campus is mostly fenced in, except for a small portion in the front. The school has security cameras installed. The school follows a safety protocol from releasing students to parents in case of an evacuation, and it has practices in place for firearm/weapon prevention, such as searching backpacks as necessary. Jamestown School District would like to inform the Grand Jury that since the initial interviews and investigation, the District has completed the fencing enclosure in front of school. Jamestown Elementary is now fully fenced and secure with one pedestrian gate at the entrance to the school which does have direct security camera surveillance with a camera display monitor in the school office. We do continue to follow our safety protocols for emergencies and potential evacuations, and have made further enhancements by ensuring that every classroom has a two-way radio, safety vests for easy identification of staff, and safety backpacks with up-to-date emergency contact information as well as our updated safety plan. Finally, as part of our firearm/weapon prevention protocols such as searching backpacks as necessary, the District has purchased a hand held metal detector which can detect weapons. Responses to Recommendations: Implemented recommendations:
Related Recommendations (1)
R3
Page 2
The school should complete the fencing of the remaining portion of the campus to ensure comprehensive perimeter security. Also, the school should add more cameras around the campus, especially in areas where student activity is high. At the time of the investigation Jamestown School District was already in the process of fully enclosing the front of the Jamestown Elementary School campus. We are happy to report that the fencing project was completed at the end of July and Jamestown Elementary is now completely enclosed ensuring comprehensive perimeter security. As stated in the findings, we now have one pedestrian gate for public access and which is under security camera surveillance that is shown on the school office monitor with a live feed. Additionally, the District did implement the Grand Jury's recommendation for additional cameras in high student traffic areas. We added four more cameras to areas with higher student traffic, such as outside the cafeteria/gym and outside the upper grade bathrooms, and two cameras at Chinese Camp for additional surveillance on the playground and outside the bathrooms. At this time Jamestown Elementary has 47 cameras and Chinese Camp has seven cameras. All cameras can be accessed by both the school office and the district office as well as by maintenance. Confidential management and administration can access them remotely on a cell phone app. Thank you for your time in investigating this important area of school safety. We greatly appreciate your findings and recommendations. Jamestown School District is committed to ensuring the safety of our students and staff. Sincerely,<br>Intuas Litury<br>Contessa Pelfrey, Superintendent Jamestown School District Governing Board Principal, Sarah Gillum
* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.