Safety and Security
Your children's safety and security if of utmost priority with OCMS. OCMS has a comprehensive plan for safety and security. If it becomes necessary to invoke a “lockdown”, the cooperation of parents is extremely important. No one will be allowed in or out of the building until a danger assessment is made and the situation is deemed safe. NO EXCEPTIONS.
Fire Drills: OCMS conducts a fire drill four times throughout the school year. All persons in the building must exit at that time in compliance with fire department regulations.
Tornado |Hurricane Drills: A drill for this emergency will be conducted in spring as this weather phenomenon becomes more likely.
Delays, early releases, and school closures (most often due to weather) may be necessary. Should one be necessary, we will do our best to inform parents by posting information on this website's homepage, the school's Facebook page, automated texts or voice mails, and through our updated voice recording.
Anti-Bullying
OCMS takes harassment and bullying very seriously. We do not tolerate intimidation or unwanted behaviors among our staff or students.
While realizing bullying can often be overstated and misunderstood, we have joined with the school district in adopting a comprehensive anti-bullying policy.
For more information on the policy and links to a number of great resources, click the button below.
FortifyFL is a suspicious activity reporting tool that allows you to instantly relay information to appropriate law enforcement agencies and school officials.
School Safety
A.L.I.C.E. Protocol Initiatives
Providing a safe and secure learning environment for students is of paramount importance at Ocali Charter Middle School. Along with Marion County Public School district, OCMS has numerous practices, procedures and protocols in place each day to ensure a safe learning environment.
Marion County Public Schools and OCMS have adopted a new safety protocol program called ALICE. ALICE is a protocol that enhances previous lockdown procedures. The U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Homeland Security and other educational leadership and governmental agencies have recommended that school districts develop a protocol that provides options to students and staff when facing threat or harm from an aggressive intruder.
ALICE stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate. ALICE empowers staff to exercise options in the event of such a critical incident, based on real-time information gathered during the incident. This enhanced protocol does not dictate to staff or students how they should react, but merely provides options for actions in addition to traditional lockdown.
For more information please check out:
Marion County Public Schools ALICE Intro
Safety Procedures
OCMS has designed comprehensive safety protocols to ensure the well-being of our staff and students. They include a number of procedures for handling natural disasters, threats, and various emergency situations.
For more information, click the button below.
SPEAK-UP HOTLINE
This is a toll free hotline designed primarily for student use to report any concerns that they may have concerning such topics as theft, violence, suicide, drugs, bullying, weapons, vandalism, and domestic abuse. Students may also access via a texting component.
866-SPEAK-UP
(866-773-2581)
or Text SPEAKUP to 847411
STUDENT RELEASE FORM
To ensure the safety of every student, please make sure the school has the latest signed Student Release Form. Students will only be released to authorized individuals, who must show a valid and legal picture ID at the time of pickup.