The Great Neck Board of Education adopted a new district-wide safety plan Thursday night, which will be implemented for the start of the school year that is just around the corner.

The district-wide safety plan is intended to “provide for the safety, health and security of both students and staff and allows for input from the entire school community,” according to its policy statement.

The plan includes protocols and procedures for emergencies as well as methods for preventing and mitigating them.

“Just in the short time I have been with the district, I have had the ability to note and observe many, both structural and procedural, changes to our safety procedures that I think further enhance the safety of all of our school buildings,” Superintendent Kenneth Bossert said.

Also in anticipation of students’ arrival, the district has completed various capital improvement projects over the summer.

These projects included renovations to the district’s science labs at North High and North Middle and renovations to the Lakeville Elementary library.

“[It is] shocking to see how much work gets done over a seven-or eight-week window,” Board of Education President Grant Toch said.

Toch thanked the individuals integral to completing the summer construction.

“Because it certainly can’t be easy and I’m sure it’s very stressful,” Toch said. “And when the students and parents pull up to schools on day one, they have no idea the level of preparation that has gone on and I just hope people take a moment to appreciate what has gone on in those buildings over the summer.”

In other news, the Board of Education honored police officers from the Lake Success Police Department for their efforts in keeping their schools safe.

Lakeville Principal Emily Zucal spoke highly of the officers who protect the students at her school, comparing them to the “helpers” that Fred Rogers once famously coined.

“In a 1999 interview, Rogers talked about the chaos of modern life and how it seems like bad and scary things are happening increasingly in our days,” Zucal said. “His answer to this was advice his mother gave him when he was a kid: ‘Always look for the helpers.’”

Zucal said they, too, teach their students to look for the helpers, and she noted the Lake Success police officers as some of those helpers.

“Their visibility during periods of student arrival and dismissal, their presence at emergency drills, their responsiveness to situations having to do with student safety and welfare that arise and their hospitality during evacuation drills that take us to their headquarters at 15 Vanderbilt Drive have established them in the eyes of all of us as part community helper and part superhero,” Zucal said.

Five officers were honored Thursday night, including Sgt. Thomas Alter, Officer Michael Caputo, Officer Gianpaolo Lisena, Officer Michael Palma and dispatcher Babette Riggs.

The Great Neck Board of Education will convene again on Sept. 18.