Review of Violence Prevention at the Ojo Encino Day School

We conducted an inspection of the Ojo Encino Day School, located on the Navajo Reservation in Cuba, NM, to determine the quality of safety measures in place to prevent violence against students and staff from internal and external threats. We found Ojo Encino Day School’s safety measures to be inadequate. 

 

Specifically, while Ojo Encino Day School’s comprehensive emergency plan contained four of the five topics we reviewed, we found that it did cover hostage situations. In addition, training on violence prevention and emergency preparedness was not provided to either staff or students. Further, we were unable to run evacuation or lock-down drills during our visit on May 20, 2014, because school officials felt it would be unsafe for staff and students to perform drills that are not practiced on a regular basis. 

 

Finally, of the 18 safety measures we checked for, Ojo Encino Day School did not have 5 in place. While no single safety measure is so critical that its absence at an educational facility is cause for immediate concern, we found that the more safety measures not in place, the less prepared the school is to respond to an incident. 

 

We provided five recommendations to help Ojo Encino Day School improve its safety measures.