Preparing for the year ahead

By Amani Reed, Director

It has been one of the busiest summers ever here at 2000 Edgehill. We just completed another successful summer of camps reaching record enrollment and celebrated 10 years of our Horizons program. Hearing our Middle School students begin rehearsal for the musical means that the first day of school is just around the corner.

Our Operations staff have been working hard to update the campus for the upcoming school year. When you arrive in just a few days, you may notice freshly painted hallways and corridors along with new flooring and improvements in progress to our indoor pool. What you may not notice as quickly are important facility upgrades that will improve our campus security. We began last year assessing the security needs of our historic Edgehill Campus. Our assessment provided good insight for us to make some important modifications to this beautiful building. Over the past few months, we have: 

We also have joined Vanderbilt University’s Secure Dores program to limit building access. Named for VU’s Commodore mascot, it allows Vanderbilt University Public Safety to remotely lock and unlock individual exterior doors as well as monitor whether any doors are locked, propped open, or forced open.

We are working with our external partners and vendors who have expertise in security and crisis preparedness and will continue to follow and meet all legislative requirements around school safety, even as they may evolve with an upcoming special state legislative session. Our progress this summer also includes bringing to USN a full-time law enforcement officer to work alongside our faculty and staff as Director of Security. We are in the final stages of this hiring process and anticipate this person will be in place by the first day of school. This Tennessee Peace Officers Standards and Training Commission-certified individual will develop, implement, and maintain a comprehensive physical security plan and school safety program for our educational environment and work directly with Vanderbilt University Public Safety and USN’s other external security professionals. We will continue to be as attentive to security as we ended last school year with uniformed officers.

Our school leadership continues to work on governance as the Board of Trustees and its new officers prepare to lead the USN community through a strategic planning process with guidance from consultants. Each member of the USN community will have opportunities to participate as we collectively decide how to move our school forward while maintaining our academic excellence and remaining mission aligned.

As you have read, this summer has been active and productive. I am excited to begin the school year and hope to see you at the Popsicle Party.