 Tip of the Week:
I receive calls fairly often from people who are working on one particular part of their crisis plan. This week there are many of you who are working on drills and evacuations!
A couple of quick thoughts!
One is that when you practice fire drills, you can greatly enhance your population's capacity to evacuate in a variety of ways by putting a sign in a different hallway each time that says, "Fire and smoke here - go out a different way." Let teachers know ahead of time that they may meet this so they're prepared to direct their students to the next option. The next thought is that where they usually stand while teachers are accounting for students could end up being downwind of the fire, so have reassembly places in two directions from the building and drill both locations during the year.
And about lock-down drills. Think about this! According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, students died of a gunshot wound at a rate of 226 outside of school to 1 inside a school. Stated another way, in a country with 119,000 schools, one per month will have one incident when a student will enter a school and shoot someone. Put another way, each school should expect to lose one person to a school shooting once every 12,800 years.* So maybe the most important thing isn't to keep drilling about shootings and instead, take an "all hazards" approach. Shelter in place as a drill for a chemical spill outside. Think about the kinds of natural disasters that occur in your neck of the woods. Consider this! In 2006 (most recent statistics for lightening available), 13 students died being struck by lightening.** Are you practicing drills for lightening strikes on your athletic fields? The more varieties of kinds of events for which you are prepared, the more likely you will be to survive what strikes in the best shape possible.
* School Crime and Safety: 2007. National Center for Education Statistics.
** NOAA
Breathe more deeply as the holidays approach!
Cheri
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