Importance of school planning for disastermanagement?

Answer 1

It is essential that schools have disaster management plans (and this has nothing to do with lesson planning!). I'm going to throw out just a few 'sample' things to think about-- every school's disaster plans must be geared to fit the particular school, and plan creators should include people with a variety of specialties, preferably including local police, fire and/or emergency medical personnel. School staff and faculty have to know in advance how to respond to a natural disaster (tornado, flood, fire, earthquake, etc), which means have evacuation plans in place complete with set meeting zones for each class where headcounts may be taken, staff assigned to do building sweeps post-evacuation to ensure everyone is out (and not hiding in the restroom!), and means for contacting each student's family must be planned in advance (remember, in some natural disasters, there may be no power, no potable water, no heat. Also, if there are multiple injuries due to a disaster, it is unrealistic to expect the school nurse to 'handle them' solo, particularly since the nurse could be a patient, and in cases such as earthquakes outside emergency personnel may not be able to arrive for some time.

For other, non-natural disasters (school shootings, bomb threats, a student suicide on campus, food poisoning, school bus crash, etc) different plans must be made-- which is why this isn't "one size fits all", and why planning must be done in advance. If there is a shooter on campus, the best thing to do is a complete lock-down of every classroom until police arrive, however, that would be the worst possible reaction to a gas leak or a serious bomb threat... you don't lock down your students where they will be blown up or asphyxiated. It is again also essential that communications be available, as every student's parent will be desperately trying to find out if his/her kid is okay, and every student will be wanting to call family members.

During the actual disaster, communications must be available between supervisory and other staff. Portable radios are a good idea if affordable, however, your disaster plan and training must emphasize that two-way radios should never be used in the event of a gas leak or bomb threat, due to the risk of setting off an explosion, either by electrical spark or by broadcasting on the same frequency as the bomb's trigger.

Post-disaster planning is also essential. Schools should have prearrangements with trained counselors and social workers who have training and backgrounds in post-incident stress (which is rarely the case with school counselors). How you deal with the emotional and psychological after-effects of a disaster will make a tremendous difference in how quickly and well your school recovers its equilibrium.

Two useful texts are:

"School Crisis Management: A Hands-On Guide to Training Crisis Response Teams" by Kendall Johnson, PhD, Hunter House Publications, Alameda, CA, 1993 [There's probably a later edition out]

and

"Acute Traumatic Stress Management: Empowering Educators During Traumatic Events" 5th Edition, by Mark D. Lerner, PhD, Joseph S Volpe, PhD, and Brad Lindell, PhD; American Association of Experts in Traumatic Stress, New York, NY, 2003

Good Luck!