School Safety

Our most valuable and precious asset is our children. Collectively, it is the Okaloosa County School District’s responsibility to do everything possible not only to educate and prepare students for the future but to protect and provide them with the safest learning environment possible. Our school district takes safety seriously.

Okaloosa County schools not only have plans for conducting lock-downs, fire and severe weather drills, they also have written plans for facing a number of other crisis situations as well. These plans are regularly reviewed each year and all employees are trained or retrained annually. A variety of these drills are conducted at intervals during the school year so that both employees and students have experience with responding to a crisis situation on their campus. Each school’s drills are tailored to meet the unique circumstances of that school. Some of the factors that cause differences are the physical design of the school plant, the student population, and the age of the students at the school.

District staff is in the process of evaluating each school facility site to ascertain their safety and security status. District staff is in the process of finalizing this evaluation and is developing standards for each site in an effort to improve the security of facilities district-wide. This information will be sent to the School Board for their review and approval as we continue to make our school facilities as safe as possible.

The Okaloosa County School District has not been exempt from experiencing tragedies over the years. However, because of excellent planning, preparation, and practice, we have always been able to successfully face each situation. Our school system has been one of the safest in the country for many years. Our commitment to you, our students and employees, is to maintain this tradition of safety by continuing to plan, prepare, and practice responding to crisis situations.

School Safety Links

In an effort to help parents become more aware of school safety rules and laws, we have compiled a variety of school safety resources and parents are encouraged to share them with their children and families:

Concerned about Weather Conditions?

The Okaloosa County School District staff stays in constant communication with the Emergency Operations Center in Okaloosa County for all weather-related issues. During severe weather conditions, we receive updates every 30 minutes throughout the day and night and base our decisions about school closings on numerous factors. All updates are communicated via automated phone calls, and website and social media posts.  The safety of all children is of the utmost importance.

Question and Concerns

Steve Horton, Deputy Superintendent
Carver-Hill Administrative Complex
850.689.7117

Danny Dean, School Safety
Carver Hill Administrative Complex
850.689.7108