NIMS Activity 20: Resource Acquisition

To the extent permissible by law, schools and IHEs ensure that relevant national standards and guidance to achieve equipment, communication, and data interoperability are incorporated into acquisition programs

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Activity 20: Resource Acquisition.

To the extent permissible by law, schools and IHEs ensure that relevant national standards and guidance to achieve equipment, communication, and data interoperability are incorporated into acquisition programs

Association to NIMS

In order for a common operating system to exist, equipment, communications, and data interoperability must be standardized and understood by all. An incident or event may disable one or more communication methods, resulting in limited communication resources. For that reason, it is helpful for schools and campuses to build redundancy into their communications plans by ensuring multiple modes of communication are available in case of an emergency. The coordination and usage of common equipment and data sources allows for communications still to function when infrastructure (e.g., phone lines, computer lines) has been impacted.

IHE and school emergency response teams all report to the operations center and should work from the same communication system. Similarly, local emergency management authorities or local governments report the data to dispatch centers and emergency management operations centers. Community partners and school emergency management teams should identify systems, equipment and resources needed for interoperability or for integrating communication systems during response.

Implementation Guidance

To the extent possible, schools and IHEs should work with their community partners to establish common equipment, communications, and data interoperability processes supporting integration, and standards for resource acquisition. If possible and appropriate, school and campus assets, systems, and processes should be compatible with those of their community partners allowing for integrated communication efforts as well as timely and accurate information-sharing during incident response. For example, the common use of plain language will facilitate information-sharing and interoperability. Similarly, an LEA might purchase the same wave-length of radios as their local law enforcement agencies so they can communicate easily on a secured channel during an emergency. Another example would be if a school district "piggy-backed" onto a purchase order of a local fire department to save costs on the purchase of AEDs and to ensure consistent equipment is available. Partners include law enforcement, fire personnel, local hospitals, emergency medical services (EMS), public health, mental health, and any partner with a role in emergency response.

School and campus activities demonstrating an effort to achieve national, State and local equipment, communication, and data interoperability standards includes:

• Encouraging interoperability with partners by establishing plain language in information-sharing protocols;
• Coordinating with community partners to emphasize the interoperability and integration of response equipment, communications and data systems; and
• Making purchasing decisions and designing processes to allow for integration among community partners whenever possible or appropriate.