Dept. of Homeland Security tips for creating school emergency plans

Below is information from the Department of Homeland Security on school safety and creating an emergency plan for schools:

Each school day, our nation’s schools are entrusted to provide a safe and healthy learning environment for approximately 55 million elementary and secondary school students in public and nonpublic schools.

Families and communities expect schools to keep their children and youths safe from threats (human-caused emergencies such as crime and violence) and hazards (natural disasters, disease outbreaks, and accidents).

In collaboration with their local government and community partners, schools can take steps to plan for these potential emergencies through the creation of a school Emergency Operations Plan (school EOP).

Lessons learned from school emergencies highlight the importance of preparing school officials and first responders to implement emergency operations plans.

By having plans in place to keep students and staff safe, schools play a key role in taking preventative and protective measures to stop an emergency from occurring or reduce the impact of an incident. Although schools are not traditional response organizations, when a school-based emergency occurs, school personnel respond immediately.

They provide first aid, notify response partners, and provide instructions before first responders arrive. They also work with their community partners, i.e., governmental organizations that have a responsibility in the school emergency operations plan to provide a cohesive, coordinated response.

Community partners include first responders (law enforcement officers, fire officials, and emergency medical services personnel) as well as public and mental health entities

We recommend that planning teams responsible for developing and revising school EOPs use this document to guide their efforts. It is recommended that districts and individual schools compare existing plans and processes against the content and processes outlined in this guide.

To gain the most from it, users should read through the entire document prior to initiating their planning efforts and then refer back to it throughout the planning process.

The guide is organized in four sections:

1. The principles of school emergency management planning.

2. A process for developing, implementing, and continually refining a school EOP with community partners (e.g., first responders and emergency management personnel) at the school building level.

3. A discussion of the form, function, and content of school EOPs.

4. “A Closer Look,” which considers key topics that support school emergency planning, including addressing an active shooter, school climate, psychological first aid, and information-sharing. As the team that developed this guide began its work to respond to the president’s call for model emergency management plans for schools, it became clear that there is a need to help ensure that

our schools’ emergency planning efforts are aligned with the emergency planning practices at the national, state, and local levels. Recent developments have put a new emphasis on the process for developing EOPs. National preparedness efforts, including planning, are now informed by Presidential Policy Directive (PPD) 8, which was signed by the president in March 2011 and describes the nation’s approach to preparedness. This directive represents an evolution in our collective understanding of national preparedness, based on the lessons learned from terrorist attacks, hurricanes, school incidents, and other experiences. PPD-8 defines preparedness around five mission areas: Prevention, Protection, Mitigation, Response, and Recovery.

v v v v v Prevention, 2 Protection means the capabilities to secure schools against acts of violence and manmade or natural disasters. Protection focuses on ongoing actions that protect students, teachers, staff, visitors, networks, and property from a threat or hazard. for the purposes of this guide, means the capabilities necessary to avoid, deter, or stop an imminent crime or threatened or actual mass casualty incident. Prevention is the action schools take to prevent a threatened or actual incident from occurring. Mitigation means the capabilities necessary to eliminate or reduce the loss of life and property damage by lessening the impact of an event or emergency. In this document, “mitigation” also means reducing the likelihood that threats and hazards will happen. Response means the capabilities necessary to stabilize an emergency once it has already happened or is certain to happen in an unpreventable way; establish a safe and secure environment; save lives and property; and facilitate the transition to recovery. Recovery means the capabilities necessary to assist schools affected by an event or emergency in restoring the learning environment. Emergency management officials and emergency responders engaging with schools are familiar with this terminology. These mission areas generally align with the three timeframes associated with an incident: before, during, and after. The majority of Prevention, Protection, and Mitigation activities generally occur before an incident, although these three mission areas do have ongoing activities that can occur throughout an incident. Response activities occur during an incident, and Recovery activities can begin during an incident and occur after an incident. To help avoid confusion over terms and allow for ease of reference, this guide uses “before,” “during,” and “after.”

For the full guide for developing high-quality emergeency operations plans for schools, go to http://1.usa.gov/1MSpqLd

Source: U.S. Department of Homeland Security