The Columbus School administration is preparing a new policy called “Child Protection”.

This policy is about protecting children while they are inside and outside of school.  If a student is going through difficult times in any place, this policy will cover any emergency that students present. Some examples of this policy include: bullying, injuries, home violence, rape, depression, death, anorexia, fights with other students or at home, etc.

“Child protection policy is protecting children from all the harm in school were all the adults are responsible for the children,” Duyen Davis, Elementary School Counselor, said.

This policy will help parents to not worry about their child’s safety if something happens to them. If something harmful or dangerous happens to a student, the school will take actions and take care of the child; it also applies for situations that happen outside of school.

“The school gets involved when we start seeing different signals or signs at school, let’s say for some reason a child at home may be abused in some kind of way, it could be physical, it could be sexual, maybe at home or by some family members or whatever,” Davis said.

The child protection program will help parents and children at school by giving them the proper attention. For example, if there is an injury there will be a doctor who will look after the child’s health and safety.

“We’ve always had policies in place, because we do have to report to authorities here in Colombia because the law says so if we know that a child is in danger, but this policy is going to make sure not only that we meet the standards that the school has; but also that the hall community members are doing the same thing,” Davis explained.

The policy has always been there but the school hasn’t come out to the public yet, but school is planning to do soon. The policy is obligated to tell the authorities if something happens to a child, also the school has standard that need to be followed so this policy works.

“We’ve always had the policies in place, because we do have to report to authority in colombia because the law says so  if we know that a child is in danger, but this policy is going to be able to make sure that we make the standards,” Davis said.

For this policy every section of the school is involved, like polideportivo, they have to be involved if a child is in danger or they suffered from an accident in school or outside playing any type of sport

“We are working in teams to do that,counselors, administrators,nursing department is involved,human resources is involved,polideportivo is involved,were we have to come up and see if we are meeting the standards,” Duyen commented.

What The Columbus School wants is that the children are safe, especially at school, the school do this by making sure, how are the emotion of every child, or if they are having problems, teachers can see this by how the kids are behaving with others and how the work ethic is inside and outside of school.

“The school gets involved if we see different signals, lets say a child at home is getting abused in some type of way, if we se some bruises or the way they behave  we are able to investigate the school will report to the authorities,” Duyen commented.

The school is prepared for any kind of situation, such as being able to know who enters the school and for what reason and not letting any stranger enter the campus  or staying wondering around because there might be students that can be vulnerable to this kind of situation so The Columbus School is prepared for every situation.

“We want to make sure that the students are protected physically, if they go to the school campus to make sure the students are safe and everyone knows how to use the needed tools to keep the students safe,” Davis said.