COMPETENCY 6: ORGANIZATIONAL MANAGEMENT
Related Task 6.7:
Knowledge of safety and security plans and procedures to protect students and staff
Specific Task 6.7.11:
Evaluate bomb threat policies with police and bomb detection squads
Narrative description of specific task:
Review current bomb threat policies and procedures. Work with cooperating administrator and police liaison officer to determine areas of weakness and potential plans of improvement regarding such policies. Develop recommendations for changes to be made in the next school year crisis plan, as well as a plan to evaluate the benefit of those changes.
Process, Purpose, and Approach:
While the event of a serious natural or heinous catastrophe happening in our schools is a rare occasion, we must still be prepared and have an easily followable plan in place to protect our students. Emergency evacuation and shelter in place drills such as fire and tornado drills have been in practiced for a long time. In the last 10 to 15 years though, other emergencies such as bomb threat and active shooter drills have been added to the litany of things to prepare for. Events such as Columbine, Jonesboro, and Sandy Hook have proved that while the chances of this happening are slim, the threats are very real.
Our school has quite a robust plan in place for events such as these, however they always require refining as we we react to real world threats and practice more drills. Last year, Grand Blanc High School and countless other schools across the county, state, and country were required to react to bomb threats on multiple occasions. There was a bomb threat against our school on the first day of the 2012-13 school year that luckily was investigated and proved only an empty threat prior to school opening, therefore having no effect on students or classes. However, not only four months later in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting, similar threats caused widespread panic as our school went into react to active shooter posture (Read news accounts here by the NY Daily News, and the local NBC affiliate). Investigations later found that threats at the school were a mixture of immaturity of teenage boys, heightened anxiety from Sandy Hook, and general misunderstanding. Nonetheless, these situations made it clear that practicing for events like this and improving from lessons learned is required.
At Grand Blanc High School, Assistant Principal Chris Belcher and school resource officer Sergeant Bryan Byarski are tasked with updating the schools crisis plan in accordance with ISD and District plans. These gentlemen were interviewed for this competency in order to gain a greater insight into weaknesses of the crisis plan and possible proposed solutions.
Right away, Sgt. Byarski said one of the greatest challenges that has not yet been sorted out, is a crisis reunification plan. He stated that after such an event, the whole school would immediately be turned into a crime scene and would need to be cordoned off by law enforcement in order to conduct forensic investigations. There is no way that students could be kept on site for this whole time and most likely would need to be evacuated. Since Grand Blanc High School has such a large geographic footprint and student body, finding a suitable reunification site may be challenging. Additionally, maintaining accurate records in order to get accountability of over 2,700 students and 150+ staff members is a nightmare, all while dealing with the chaos of a tragic event. Currently, secretarial staff rely on massive paper master rosters of all students in the building. Therefore, the two aspects of the schools crisis plan that need immediate attention and policy changes are the reunification and accountability processes.
First, as far as reunification is concerned, the school has realized this weakness and began the early stages of brainstorming a plan. The transportation department would need to have bus drivers on emergency availability in the district to be able to stage at the high school as soon as possible. Since the school is split into East and West campuses, they would need to stage at one building or the other depending upon where the threat is concentrated. For example, if the main threat is at East campus, classes would evacuate to West campus, and then district buses would meet them there. Since Sgt. Byarski has served as the varsity hockey coach for a number of years, he has proposed that students and staff are evacuated to Perani arena, a hockey arena in Flint, approximately 7 miles north of the high school. He said that a site like this would be ideal, considering its size, and numbered seating sections that could be identified as specific locations for classes to rally to. Additionally, Mr. Belcher threw out the idea of students being evacuated to the Genysys Athletic club, which is only 3 miles to the south and has large banquet rooms and gym facilities that would be able to accommodate the large student body. Either way, district leadership will need to reach out to these local businesses and coordinate the use and availability of these locations.
Secondly, the feat of establishing accountability for all students and staff post event will be a significant challenge. As stated before, the secretarial staff currently relies on paper records that would be brought with them upon evacuation. Sgt. Byarski said the school needs to work out a plan where they can digitally maintain accountability for speed. He said he is working to transition school records onto multiple thumb drives that can be updated daily and taken along with laptops by the staff in order to check students in/out during the accountability and reunion phases. There are currently bar code scanners with universal software throughout the school (library, lunch room, office) that can scan ID cards/enter ID numbers. Having this capability would make the accountability process work smoother. This is especially important if the event happened between class changes, where teachers would be trying to account for students from their previous and next classes.
Lessons Learned
The responsibilities of administrators during a crisis event are enormous. As the Steinbeck quote goes, "the best laid plans of mice and men..." Crisis plans are supposed to allow for some control in an uncontrollable situation, but in reality Murphy's law that "what can go wrong will" is always in effect. School administrators and law enforcement professionals need to work hand in hand to ensure there is a realistic plan in place that provides the best possible outcomes. Making these small changes to the crisis plan, with regards to bomb threat/active shooter evacuations will improve the post event outcomes. These changes are not a panacea, but with continued refinement will make for a safer environment for students.
Future steps would involve incorporating these changes into the official high school and district crisis plans, and then practicing them within drills. Ensuring that transportation can become available quickly on short notice will be a key evaluative task. Additionally, all staff members must become proficient in student accountability and check-in procedures via the new digital system. Practice will yield challenges and issues that have never been identified before.
Related Task 6.7:
Knowledge of safety and security plans and procedures to protect students and staff
Specific Task 6.7.11:
Evaluate bomb threat policies with police and bomb detection squads
Narrative description of specific task:
Review current bomb threat policies and procedures. Work with cooperating administrator and police liaison officer to determine areas of weakness and potential plans of improvement regarding such policies. Develop recommendations for changes to be made in the next school year crisis plan, as well as a plan to evaluate the benefit of those changes.
Process, Purpose, and Approach:
While the event of a serious natural or heinous catastrophe happening in our schools is a rare occasion, we must still be prepared and have an easily followable plan in place to protect our students. Emergency evacuation and shelter in place drills such as fire and tornado drills have been in practiced for a long time. In the last 10 to 15 years though, other emergencies such as bomb threat and active shooter drills have been added to the litany of things to prepare for. Events such as Columbine, Jonesboro, and Sandy Hook have proved that while the chances of this happening are slim, the threats are very real.
Our school has quite a robust plan in place for events such as these, however they always require refining as we we react to real world threats and practice more drills. Last year, Grand Blanc High School and countless other schools across the county, state, and country were required to react to bomb threats on multiple occasions. There was a bomb threat against our school on the first day of the 2012-13 school year that luckily was investigated and proved only an empty threat prior to school opening, therefore having no effect on students or classes. However, not only four months later in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting, similar threats caused widespread panic as our school went into react to active shooter posture (Read news accounts here by the NY Daily News, and the local NBC affiliate). Investigations later found that threats at the school were a mixture of immaturity of teenage boys, heightened anxiety from Sandy Hook, and general misunderstanding. Nonetheless, these situations made it clear that practicing for events like this and improving from lessons learned is required.
At Grand Blanc High School, Assistant Principal Chris Belcher and school resource officer Sergeant Bryan Byarski are tasked with updating the schools crisis plan in accordance with ISD and District plans. These gentlemen were interviewed for this competency in order to gain a greater insight into weaknesses of the crisis plan and possible proposed solutions.
Right away, Sgt. Byarski said one of the greatest challenges that has not yet been sorted out, is a crisis reunification plan. He stated that after such an event, the whole school would immediately be turned into a crime scene and would need to be cordoned off by law enforcement in order to conduct forensic investigations. There is no way that students could be kept on site for this whole time and most likely would need to be evacuated. Since Grand Blanc High School has such a large geographic footprint and student body, finding a suitable reunification site may be challenging. Additionally, maintaining accurate records in order to get accountability of over 2,700 students and 150+ staff members is a nightmare, all while dealing with the chaos of a tragic event. Currently, secretarial staff rely on massive paper master rosters of all students in the building. Therefore, the two aspects of the schools crisis plan that need immediate attention and policy changes are the reunification and accountability processes.
First, as far as reunification is concerned, the school has realized this weakness and began the early stages of brainstorming a plan. The transportation department would need to have bus drivers on emergency availability in the district to be able to stage at the high school as soon as possible. Since the school is split into East and West campuses, they would need to stage at one building or the other depending upon where the threat is concentrated. For example, if the main threat is at East campus, classes would evacuate to West campus, and then district buses would meet them there. Since Sgt. Byarski has served as the varsity hockey coach for a number of years, he has proposed that students and staff are evacuated to Perani arena, a hockey arena in Flint, approximately 7 miles north of the high school. He said that a site like this would be ideal, considering its size, and numbered seating sections that could be identified as specific locations for classes to rally to. Additionally, Mr. Belcher threw out the idea of students being evacuated to the Genysys Athletic club, which is only 3 miles to the south and has large banquet rooms and gym facilities that would be able to accommodate the large student body. Either way, district leadership will need to reach out to these local businesses and coordinate the use and availability of these locations.
Secondly, the feat of establishing accountability for all students and staff post event will be a significant challenge. As stated before, the secretarial staff currently relies on paper records that would be brought with them upon evacuation. Sgt. Byarski said the school needs to work out a plan where they can digitally maintain accountability for speed. He said he is working to transition school records onto multiple thumb drives that can be updated daily and taken along with laptops by the staff in order to check students in/out during the accountability and reunion phases. There are currently bar code scanners with universal software throughout the school (library, lunch room, office) that can scan ID cards/enter ID numbers. Having this capability would make the accountability process work smoother. This is especially important if the event happened between class changes, where teachers would be trying to account for students from their previous and next classes.
Lessons Learned
The responsibilities of administrators during a crisis event are enormous. As the Steinbeck quote goes, "the best laid plans of mice and men..." Crisis plans are supposed to allow for some control in an uncontrollable situation, but in reality Murphy's law that "what can go wrong will" is always in effect. School administrators and law enforcement professionals need to work hand in hand to ensure there is a realistic plan in place that provides the best possible outcomes. Making these small changes to the crisis plan, with regards to bomb threat/active shooter evacuations will improve the post event outcomes. These changes are not a panacea, but with continued refinement will make for a safer environment for students.
Future steps would involve incorporating these changes into the official high school and district crisis plans, and then practicing them within drills. Ensuring that transportation can become available quickly on short notice will be a key evaluative task. Additionally, all staff members must become proficient in student accountability and check-in procedures via the new digital system. Practice will yield challenges and issues that have never been identified before.
Artifacts
Grand Blanc High: East and West Campus Bus Evacuation Locations
Reunification Plan Locations: Grand Blanc High (Point B), Perani Arena (Point A), Genysis Athletic Club (Point C)
Genesee Intermediate School District Crisis Plan: Click to download file
crisis_response_plan_draft.pdf | |
File Size: | 3821 kb |
File Type: |