S.A.F.E. Grant Info

The Fiscal Year 2013 S.A.F.E. Grant award letters should arrive mid-January. Fire chiefs should sign the contracts, have the signatory authorization forms executed and return them to DFS as quickly as possible to receive their funds.

FY 2012 S.A.F.E Grant Year-End Report Form doc format of FY 2012 S.A.F.E Grant Year-End Report Form  
Here is the FY 2012 Grant Year End Report form. Reports are due at the Department of Fire Services by Friday, February 1, 2013. It includes a form to request a six-month extension if any FY ’12 funds remain as of December 31, 2013. You must either request an extension in order to be able to spend those funds or return them. The document also includes the Final Budget Worksheet you will need to submit by July 31, 2013 if you apply for and receive an extension.

In an effort to simplify the reporting process, we have included examples of properly completed forms, and modified the instructions. However, please call the S.A.F.E. staff at (978) 567-3388 with any questions.

FY 2012 Fire Safety House Report Form doc format of FY 2012 Fire Safety House Report Form  
Here is the FY ’12 Fire Safety House Year-End Report form. Fire departments that are the hosts of the fire district’s fire safety house received funds for maintenance of the fire safety houses. Please complete this report and if there are any leftover funds either request a six-month extension or return them. 

Training

Public Fire & Life Safety Educator Course– The next Public and Life Safety Educator (PF & LSE) will be held on March 21, 22, 27, 28 and April 4, 2013 in Billerica. It is a 5-day program designed to provide a community with the basis for a solid public education program and is designed, at a minimum, to properly train the fire department’s lead S.A.F.E. educator. Topics covered include: child development; how people learn, focusing on different learning styles and the seven intelligences; lesson planning; curricula review; public speaking; program evaluation; and connecting lessons to the curriculum frameworks. The program concludes with students presenting a segment of instruction on a given topic for a specified age group. Registrations for PF&LSE are priority selection. 

S.A.F.E. FY 2010 Annual Report
This statewide annual report of the Student Awareness of Fire Education Program includes exciting results from the first year using the 3rd grade evaluation tool. It allows us to prove that students are learning what we think we are teaching and to know where there is room for improvement. Massachusetts may well be the first state in the nation that is conducting this sort of rigorous, consistent evaluation of its fire education.

Student Evaluation
Are Students Truly Learning What We Think We Are Teaching Them?
Evaluation is key to the success of the S.A.F.E. Program. How do we know if the students really learned what we thought we taught them? Are they getting all the key concepts by the time they reach certain milestones? Let's check and see.

No matter which grades your S.A.F.E. Program focuses on, there are certain key behaviors that we expect students will have learned along the way. Our goal is to find a way to measure if students have indeed learned those key core concepts of fire and life safety by the spring of third, sixth and tenth grades, without taking away the flexibility that local school and fire departments have in designing their S.A.F.E. Programs and selecting their target age groups.

Using the MA Fire and Life Safety Education Curriculum Planning Guidebook AND the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's Health Curriculum Frameworks, the Department of Fire Services has developed a third and a sixth grade evaluation tool for use by S.A.F.E. educators. The tenth grade tool is in development. By recording the results we strengthen our resolve to provide the best educational opportunities possible to our young learners.

Third Grade Evaluation Tool
Here are the links to the third grade evaluation tool, the spreadsheet to use as the master scoring database, a sample of the database, and a guide on how to give the test and to use the database. Please feel free to contact S.A.F.E. staff with any questions.

Sixth Grade Evaluation Tool
Here are the links to the sixth grade evaluation tool, the spreadsheet to use as the master scoring database, a sample of the database, and a guide on how to give the test and to use the database. Please feel free to contact S.A.F.E. staff with any questions.