Communication is Key to Community Partnering

On any given school day, schools are accountable for the safety of approximately one-fifth of the U.S. population

New developments in school readiness, presented by the SouthEast Education Network.

By Mike Coleman

Today schools and their efforts are seen differently than just a decade ago.

In 2002 the No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law. In 1996 a comprehensive guide was published in defining standards-based districts, schools and classrooms. The focus had been how to enrich and better our educational system to yield America's future as brighter and smarter.

Schools now have to stretch their typically limited budget, resources, and staff time developing emergency response plans and participating in preparedness activities. A sharper focus is on our schools and their readiness to act. Today in America there are over 55.8 million elementary and secondary school students according to the US Department of Education. These students and their schools are at the hearts of America.

Schools Are Seen Differently Now

Schools have traditionally been a place used for learning, gathering and sheltering. Beyond the daily learning of a neighborhood school many extra-curricular activities occur: sports, scouting, clubs and committee meetings. This openness is changing. Schools dissuade activities due to lack of staff to supervise programs. Schools in some areas are no longer trustworthy of local scout programs because they leave the building unsecure when there is little or no building staff supervision. This creates an opportunity for mischievous or malicious actions and administrators work to reduce these risks.

The National Infrastructure Protection Plan published in 2006 has been developed to identify, categorize and assess locations that may be at risk. The plan does not detail what targets are most at risk but it addresses infrastructure and systems that have social and economic impacts. Many agencies began their critical infrastructure inventory procedures five years ago, many did not include schools. Recent school-based events have honed the communities' assessments to add or reprioritize schools on their list.

In the fall of 2007 the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) published a training program on the basic Incident Command System course (ICS-100) just for school personnel. Until this point school staff that might have been included in ICS training were provided more of an all-hazards view in their instruction. School readiness grant opportunities are increasing but are not currently at the same level as emergency responder and local government grants for planning, preparedness and response.

School districts are creating emergency management roles or specifically tasking that duty on current staff. Many times this is added to the Risk Manager or Operations Manager. These same staff are now reaching out to community partners for information, assistance and training.

School Preparedness

School districts across our country are now taking a more active role in their readiness instead of being "a part of a plan." Workshops and consultants work with school district staff to begin the planning, development and implementation of an all hazards emergency response plan. There are a variety of names for the plan but the core foundation is they are identifying their risks, their resources and their actions. Some school districts are now encouraging staff or mandating key staff to have basic Incident Command System (ICS) training. Colorado recently enacted a law requiring districts to develop safety teams in each school and provide them with training and equipment. The law requires that the school district will develop a school readiness and incident management plan with local community stakeholders. The law further directs the districts to inventory and define how the schools will have interoperable communications with local agencies. Extending beyond the interoperability is performing coordinated exercises that include schools.

School districts are reaching out to their local or state emergency management staff and actively participating in local emergency response drills. A school participation is reaching beyond providing sheltering and transportation. School personnel are engaging actively in their community readiness. Schools are hosting events to not only better the first responders but better their staff and students ability to respond in a crisis. Student-based Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) are evolving as a resource. The students are trained by CERT instructors and are then a tool to assist the schools during a time of crisis when emergency response resources are limited.

School personnel are truly the "first responders" when an incident occurs in their school. Teachers, administrators and support staff are geared towards helping our youth and naturally migrate to protecting them in times of crisis.

A Change of Thinking

Across our country schools have evolved to practicing fire drills because of local fire codes that were developed from post-incident reviews of fatal school fires. Some schools do it on a regular basis while others do it at random times. What other types of drills have you seen practiced? It was only 40 years ago that kids practiced "duck and cover drills" where students were moved to inside corridors for safety. Now is a good time to evaluate what drills are practiced, what are their purposes and what are they called. A fire drill is actually a school evacuation drill. Would you only evacuate a school for a fire? Isn't a "duck and cover drill" just a shelter-in-place drill? School district administrators typically detail out when a school will be evacuated and where students will be staged.

Joe Ruffini, a nationally recognized author and school safety speaker, encourages that when a school evacuates the students should not congregate in one location nor repeatedly return to the same locations. Should the students be a target of a terrorist they would only have to observe a local drill to determine the most damage they could inflict.

Many school plans call for public address announcements or codes to be given when an incident is detected. The use of codes can be confusing to students or staff as to their meaning and their reaction. The term "Code Red" in one school might mean an armed intruder where at another school it means a fire. Plan on how you will communicate among staff in the event of an evacuation. Many evacuation plans place the student body too close to the building in the event of a fire or hazardous material incident. How will the staff communicate to the administration if they have accounted for all their children, or worse, if any students are missing? A plan to have a teacher use their personal cell phone to call the front desk number after a school is evacuated is not a wise plan, yet that is what is being directed at times.

Accountability is critical. Administrators have a sense of which teachers and staff are at work each day. Typically after the start of the school day it is evident which students are absent and staff begin to follow up. Create the same accountability for visitors by requiring them to sign in and out. Request the reason for their visit and have staff assigned to patrol the hallways and exterior of the building. Even if a school requires all exterior doors to be locked, forcing persons to enter through the front door, a nice student may still allow a visitor to enter through another doorway. Districts are remodeling school facilities to better accommodate new accountability procedures.

Communication is Key

A school that provides incident management policies and training to staff has to equally balance it with a solid communications plan. A communications plan cannot be just a code word or a group text page to alert the staff and/or parents. When the time comes that an emergency happens in your school, have the right tools for the job.

Many schools have begun to replace the traditional two-way radio system with cellular-based phones. Although a cellular product provides convenience and privacy, it does not substitute for reliable simultaneous communications among numerous staff carrying radios. When a crisis impacts a school lasting more than a short time the staff will become frustrated when solely relying on a cellular phone for current information. Not only are the students and teachers carrying their personal phone to school, but all the parents, media and on-lookers arriving will be using their phones as well. This will typically overload local public carrier towers and disrupt effective and responsive communications.

Develop a school radio communications system that is used each and every day. The valuable time savings and efficiency will be seen. For a school radio solution to be effective, staff have to feel comfortable with the device and it has to be compact. First responder high-end radios are not the right tool for the job at a school, as much as a taxi is not the right tool to transport students to school each day. Evaluate how your school staff will communicate via radio with first responders during an emergency. Systems are available and in place to bridge school staff radios to first responder radios. Closely evaluate the solution and determine if it is a broader solution shoehorned into a school or if is designed for on-demand interoperability with school systems at the core. The sooner a school staff member that is assisting a student with a medical condition can update emergency medical teams, the greater chance for a successful conclusion exists. Each 9-1-1 call comes with a quick volley of questions and answers that have to be relayed through one or more communications center staff. Create the ability to save precious time and directly communicate medical needs, closest entrances and best routes for responders.

School administrators, teachers, legislators, parents and public safety personnel are seeing the need for school readiness and its utility in a different light now. School systems are mirroring the actions, policies and equipment that fi rst responders have been doing for years. So, while our educational systems are enriching the lives and knowledge of their students, they are also aggressively protecting them by more advanced and coordinated means.

Mike Coleman is the Vice President of Business Development for QDS Communications, Inc. He has more than 25 years of service in public safety, retiring as the Administrative Services Bureau Chief of the Douglas County, Colorado Sheriff's Office. Coleman is also active in interoperability issues and has spoken nationally at APCO, PSWN, SAFECOM and the Foundation for the Prevention of School Violence conferences. For more information visit www.QDSCorp.com or www.SchoolSAFEcom.org. This article was featured in the Fall 2008 issue of SEEN, the magazine of the SouthEast Education Network, and is reprinted here by permission of the author. For a color reprint of the magazine article, click the link below.