There are some situations in life where overlooking one detail could torpedo months’ worth of planning and preparation. For example, I took my son to my favorite hunting spot last fall in pursuit of big game. We’d spent months preparing for our hunt: scouting the area, procuring supplies, doing target practice, and getting physically ready to do a lot of hiking uphill. When opening day came, we felt ready. We woke up when we intended to, got to the top of the mountain exactly as planned, and had everything we needed for our carefully laid plans to come to fruition – except I forgot one thing.
After we got to the top of the mountain, I felt inspired to take my son on a little stroll. As we walked, I pointed out different areas on the mountain and reminisced about the exciting hunting experiences I’d had at each spot. As I waxed long, we were interrupted by the sudden appearance of our quarry a short distance away which also coincided with the precise moment in time that I realized I had forgotten to bring the rifle along on our walk and had left it about 50 yards away.
As any seasoned hunter would, I ran like Phoebe in Friends back to the rifle while having a spirited, high-octave exchange with my son about how in the world I managed to forget the one thing we needed to be successful — or to classify what we were doing as “hunting” at all. Thanks to my cerebral flatulence, our plans failed that day.
Now that summer is ending and fall is around the corner, I’ve started thinking about the upcoming hunting season and a chance at redemption. This year, I’ll be sure to make plans with the utmost circumspection to make sure there aren’t any more foreseeable gaps in execution. Similarly, now is a great time for school safety managers to think through their emergency plans to ensure they don’t get hamstrung by an overlooked detail once school starts.
Recognizing that each school is unique and potential threats and hazards vary, the following questions can help schools assess whether their emergency plans are thorough and can be executed with fidelity once school starts up again.
1. Do you have an effective process for getting students inside quickly in an emergency?
The process of getting students who are outside inside in rapid fashion is commonly referred to as a reverse evacuation. Reverse evacuations can be useful for all sorts of situations, including the onset of inclement weather, dangerous activity outside the school, exterior hazmat spills, or, if your school is similar to those in my neck of the woods – the bull moose returning to its winter range, a.k.a. your playground.
Not all schools have a reverse evacuation function, or it may be subsumed by another response option, which limits flexibility and may cause confusion when emergencies occur while students are outside. For those that do, distinct commands are not always established to indicate there is an emergency, and movement inside needs to be conducted in a much different way than what occurs when the bell signals a normal return to the building.
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Now, you may have exceedingly compliant students who typically respond promptly when the bell rings and think you don’t need a distinct command or process for reverse evacuation. However, I have seen situations where schools with compliant students — but no reverse evacuation function or command — have called their students inside quickly only to be delayed by a pitched soccer battle and the prospect of recess glory.
Not only do I think having a reverse evacuation function is a best practice, but I also think it’s a good idea to have two different commands to initiate it: 1) a verbal command when issued over the PA, and 2) a command that can be issued by outdoor supervision staff, such as a specific whistle sequence, as these staff may be the first ones to observe the dangerous condition outside. This function can be easy to practice as it can be exercised anytime students have to return inside for normal operational purposes.
For example, since most states require schools to conduct regular evacuation drills, schools can practice a reverse evacuation each time they practice a normal evacuation: conduct the evacuation to leave the building, educate students about the reverse evacuation protocols while everyone is gathered outside, and conduct a reverse evacuation to re-enter. Schools can also practice this function when bringing students in from recess.
2. Is your school community prepared if an emergency occurs while students and staff are outside their normal classrooms or workspaces?
Cafeteria
When I conduct school vulnerability assessments, I like to ask kitchen staff what would happen if a lockdown were called at arguably one of the most inopportune times of the day – when the cafeteria is packed full of students for lunch. I ask these questions because conducting lockdown exercises often seems to be done only when students and staff are in their primary spaces. While this makes sense, not considering other places where students and staff might be during emergency exercises could hamper the development of situational awareness and options-based decision-making, both critical skills in emergencies.
The cafeteria in particular is a unique space that can be difficult to secure quickly, often has several doors, adjoining rooms, and an amalgamation of adults (e.g., kitchen staff, custodians, supervision staff, visitors, etc.) and children who congregate there during lunch. It’s a space where the pre-determination and practice of options, roles, and cadence are critical to responding effectively in an emergency.
Bathrooms
Another contender for the worst place to be during a lockdown is the bathroom. If this occurs, someone may decide the best thing to do would be to lock themselves in a stall, keep their feet raised, and stay quiet. However, many schools now have auto-flush toilets. These toilets will flush interminably as they sense movement, which would give the position away of anyone trying to hide in the stall. If your school has these, you may want to consider training students to cover the flush sensor with a piece of toilet paper during lockdowns if they choose to remain in the stall.
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Staff lounge
Staff lounges often remain unlocked throughout the day due to frequent traffic and may not be able to be secured by everyone who uses them. For example, some staff lounge doors aren’t equipped with the ability to be locked at all, and some only with a master key that not all staff have. If this applies to your school, it would be worth trying to obtain thumb locks for the staff lounge doors that can be used by all occupying staff. If that’s not an option, making sure staff know the lounge can’t be fully secured and identification of a secondary safe room would be important information to share.
Dual enrollment locations
High school students may find themselves off campus or in transit when an emergency occurs. Many schools offer dual enrollment programs with nearby Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) where students travel between their school and the IHE during the school day. Nearly all IHEs are governed by the federal law known as the Clery Act. Among its many provisions, the Clery Act requires IHEs to establish protocols for issuing emergency notifications to their campus community, which includes your students who attend part-time.
However, some IHEs utilize an “opt-in” system for emergency notifications, requiring people to sign up to receive alerts. If this is the case for your nearby IHEs, make sure your dually enrolled students are aware of this and have opted in to be made aware of emergencies that occur at their dual enrollment site.
Similarly, as most IHEs allow outsiders to opt into their emergency notification system, school administrators and safety managers should also opt-in as emergencies at your local IHEs may impact your students and daily operations.
Off-campus
Many high schoolers drive to school and have the privilege of driving off-campus for lunch and other functions. If an emergency occurs while your students are driving off-campus (e.g., during drop-off, lunch, or commuting to a dual enrollment class), being able to alert them of the danger and advise them to avoid the area is important. Because driving is a privilege, schools may want to consider requiring students who drive to provide their personal cell phone numbers to the school so they can be included in the emergency notification distribution list. Schools may also consider having pre-configured messages that can be displayed on exterior reader boards and marquees, or install exterior emergency lighting.
3. Can all your classrooms be quickly and completely secured by all your staff?
Substitute teachers
A few years ago, I volunteered to be a substitute teacher at my boys’ school. When I arrived to teach, staff escorted me to my room and unlocked my classroom door for the day. After wishing me luck and Godspeed, they left me in charge of the classroom. I quickly realized that my classroom door could only be re-locked via a key that I was not provided. Had an emergency occurred that day, I would have had no ability to lock my classroom door and secure the room against outside threats.
In addition, I’ve seen some locks that require unique sequencing to put the door into a locked position, which is not always intuitive to a new user. Schools should consider whether their substitutes are adequately equipped to respond to emergencies. For example, by providing them with room keys, door locking instructions when applicable, identification of buddy rooms and emergency equipment, and training on your school’s emergency procedures.
Adjoining doors
Some classrooms have interior adjoining doors that lead to another classroom. These are especially common in portable classrooms. Many times, the hardware on these doors makes it so they cannot be locked from either side and sometimes only from one side. If the goal of a lockdown is to secure a classroom quickly and completely, not having the ability to secure all access doors is a major impairment.
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While complying with applicable laws, schools should seek to ensure adjoining doors can be secured, whether through purchasing new equipment or supplanting with existing hardware (e.g., trading out locks from doors that might not need to be locked, such as classroom closets). If this isn’t an option, practicing room clears and knowing where buddy rooms are should be emphasized.
While these questions aren’t exhaustive, getting into the weeds and thinking critically about your school’s emergency plans will help eliminate blind spots and provide for a more effective response when an emergency occurs.
Read Part 2, which features additional questions to ask when testing your emergency response plans
Elliot Cox is a School Safety Analyst for the Idaho School Safety and Security Program. He can be reached at [email protected].
Note: The views expressed by guest bloggers and contributors are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, Campus Safety.
