From natural disasters such as storms to man-made tragedies like school shootings, it’s important for schools and school communities to be prepared to respond to a crisis.
In Illinois, the School Safety Drill Act from 2006 requires schools to be prepared for the fire and tornado drills most are familiar with, but also bus drills and school lockdown drills. In the past decade, panning for such crisis situations have expanded society’s notion of homeland security.
How these drills are implemented, and how schools respond to unique crisis such as building damage, is largely up to individual districts, said Illinois State Board of Education representative Mary Fergus.
Regional education boards make sure districts are in compliance, she said. The state board offers training and support to districts and schools to support them in creating plans.
What districts need to consider in crisis anywhere goes beyond what many of us might consider, said Zachary Kolsky, the web and marketing coordinator for the National Education Association Health Information Network.
The NEA HIN wrote its School Crisis Guide to help schools through the process of crisis preparation. The organization decided to create it after the events at Columbine in 1999, and the guide was updated in 2007, Kolsky said.
“What we’re advocating for preparation,” he said. “Oftentimes you can’t prevent crisis, but what you can control is your level of preparedness.”
And what preparedness looks like is different from campus to campus. Schools are built differently and have different environmental susceptibilities, Kolsky said.
In Illinois, for example, it doesn’t make sense to have a plan for a volcano, but having a procedure for tornados would be pivotal.
For instance, students at Griffith Elementary School in Ferguson, Missouri will be completing the school year at a district middle school after a storm ravaged the area Friday April 27, according to Joe Scott, who wrote about the school for Patch.com.
He said school administrators had to react quickly after the school building sustained water damage – the plan for relocating students was in place by noon the day following the storm.
It was fortunate, he said, that the district had space for more students at the middle school.
Regardless of location or whatever unique challenges a school may have to face, Kolsky said “It’s important to know what everyone’s role is” before, during and after a crisis.
“All stakeholders,” including teachers, parents, students, administrators and school support staff should be clear on what they should do in a crisis situation, he said.
Schools should have a “parent-student reunification plan” that sets aside a location or two for parents and students to meet, Kolsky said. This could be a sports field for some schools, or a community church for others.
This means, of course, that parents and community members alike should be in the loop for a crisis plan. First responders are other key players in a crisis preparedness plan, Kolsky said.
Finally, addressing a crisis goes beyond mitigating the immediate situation. It’s also important for schools to plan for the long-term mental and physical health of students, teachers and other school staff, Kolsky said. “It’s vital for a return to normalcy.”
The NEA HIN School Crisis Guide was developed from interviews with people at schools that had dealt with crisis. They were asked what they knew now that they wish they’d known then, Kolsky said.
Ultimately, the key to effective crisis preparation at schools is good communication.
“The most important thing is to keep talking about it and keep thinking about it,” Kolsky said. “Be aware, no matter who you are. It’s never a bad time to talk about crisis preparedness.”
