Four-phase emergency management plan ensures RE1J student safety

School district works with state to refine best practice.

Parents can breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that the RE1J School District Safety Planning Team (DSPT) has revised its best practice in case of an emergency during school hours.

The emergency management plan, or EMP, is a four-phase process detailing the necessary protocols to observe during a school safety crisis. Each year the strategy is developed and improved by the DSPT in conjunction with the Colorado School Safety Recourse Center, CSSRC, and the Association of Public-Safety Communications, APCO. All protocols are also vetted by district superintendent Doug Tredway.
In response to staff feedback and changes implemented by the CSSRC, this year’s plan saw revisions to phase checklists, threat assessment processes and procedures for advising students on how to use technology in the event of an emergency.
“Either we have an incident and learn from it and then we revise and update, or staff members might be implementing a curriculum and we take information from them. The Colorado School Safety Recourse Center also keeps us updated on best practices. We are constantly revising,” said Jennifer Read, incident commander of the DSPT and counselor at the Crested Butte Secondary School.
The four-phase process, which complies with the standards set by the National Incident Management System, NIMS, includes prevention and mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. Each school in the district is equipped with an incident command chart, identifying individuals who are responsible for overseeing different aspects of the EMP.
“The incident commander at each site is ultimately responsible for making sure that all of the training is happening, that everything on the checklists is being taken care of and that every teacher has an emergency management plan in their classroom,” Read explained.
The assistant principal at each site acts as the incident commander, with the exception of the Lake School, where the director occupies this role. All of those included on the chart are required to take an online training course to familiarize themselves with the Incident Command System principles, instituted by FEMA.
In addition to online courses, the CSSRC periodically performs in-person training with the DSPT and incident command chart members.
“The Colorado School Safety Recourse Center has sent trainers here three times to do different trainings with us. They’ve done threat assessments twice, along with table-top drills with each site where they gave us a scenario and we walked through our plan and how to respond,” Read said.
The threat assessment protocol is a 40-page document based on the U.S. Secret Service best practice and used to evaluate potentially dangerous situations. In some cases it does precipitate the implementation of an EMP protocol, but more often than not the threat can be handled without further action.
“It’s a tool we can use to help determine if a threat is something we need to address,” Read explained. “We’ve done a handful of threat assessments here and we’ve never had to go into one of the protocols.”
Read also stressed the importance of parent cooperation during the event of an emergency. In order to ensure student safety, Read recommended that parents list correct, local emergency contacts with the school. She also asked that parents resist the urge to contact the school, and instead wait to receive information.
“All of our plans are in place to keep the students safe, so please wait patiently for that communication to come,” Read said.
Parents from each school can expect a letter detailing emergency protocols and information to be delivered in the near future, either electronically or by mail.