Crisis planning is a vital—but at times overlooked—topic at many private schools. After all, who wants to think about the worst thing that could happen?
Whether due to lack of knowledge, time, or resources, many schools don’t have a comprehensive plan in place. And for those that do, some haven’t shared their plans extensively or practiced them. This means that students, parents, faculty, and staff have not learned how to react in an emergency when literally every minute counts!
The unfortunate truth is that the risks are increasing for schools everywhere. It is critical to take crisis planning seriously, and plan for a variety of situations.
Most crisis and safety experts warn against a cookie-cutter approach (such as downloading a template from the internet with no individualized thought). Your school must create its own plan to address your issues, mission, constituents, activities, physical location, values, and more.
However, be sure to incorporate guidance from many sources—safety experts, first responders, government (FEMA) resources, and the like. And remember, not all risk comes in the form of physical danger. Employment practices (including human resources), contracts, vendors, cyber security and data maintenance, and many others elements create risk as well.
The following outline is offered as a template. Use it to review your current plan or create a new one. But be sure to make it your own, based on your school’s unique needs.
Sample Outline for a Crisis Plan
- Select a crisis planning team. Consider the following positions as part of the core team:
- Administrative leaders
- Faculty and staff
- Local first responders (fire, public health, EMS, etc.)
- Board members
- Legal professionals
- Grounds and maintenance
- Medical professionals
- School neighbors
- Parents
- Students (in nonhazardous roles)
- Conduct a risk assessment and build a risk inventory. These occurrences (and others) are associated with some measure of risk.
- Hiring and firing protocols
- Corrective action and termination protocols
- Issues of facilities safety
- Lack of training in misconduct and bullying
- A poor or no Acceptable Usage Policy
- An inadequate use of proper safety equipment
- Gaps in insurance policies
- Weak or nonexistent vendor contracts
- Infrequent safety drills
- Drones
- Ridesharing
- Determine pre-event, during, and post-event goals. These should include,
- Safety of all constituents
- Property protection
- Loss reduction
- Legal protection
- Guarding the school's reputation
- Continuity of operations
- Resumption of normal duties
- Recovery (post-event procedures)
- Build your crisis teams. Create teams that will handle different functions of crisis planning, such as a safety team, emergency response team, and recovery team. (Or, if resources don’t permit, provide cross-training for your main team.) Consider representatives from your overall crisis planning team, as well as others who can step in. When the team is organized, the collective members should have the following characteristics:
- Leadership
- Authority
- Technical expertise
- Medical knowledge
- Physical and psychological abilities (such as the ability to remain calm under pressure)
- Create a preventative safety plan. This plan is designed to prevent or limit accidents, injuries, and unwanted behaviors from occurring, addressing:
- How and when to conduct safety checks of campus
- Bullying and harassment training to help mitigate issues before they happen
- Safety drills
- Reporting and investigation protocols
- Outline your school’s Emergency Operating Plan (EOP). This plan outlines how your school will respond to actual events, including:
- Intruders
- Assaults on or off campus
- Bomb threats
- Weapons on campus
- Child abuse (whether confirmed or suspected)
- Pandemics and other communicable diseases
- Criminal activity
- Death, serious injury, or illness of a school community member
- Suicide threat or attempt
- Fires
- Gas leaks or chemical spills
- A kidnapping or hostage situation
- A missing or lost student
- Emergencies that occur close to campus
- School-bus or field-trip emergency
- Severe weather
- Biohazards
- Utility failure
- Create emergency response procedures. This includes both what you plan to do during an emergency and what resources your school will require from the community. Who is trained and empowered to initiate the emergency response? How will they do that (such as a phone app or flip chart)? Be certain these situations are specifically addressed:
- Lockdowns
- Shelter-in-place
- Missing student
- Active shooter
- Building evacuations
- Campus evacuations
- Reverse evacuations
- Neighborhood evacuations
- Define emergency management and first responder roles. How will your school work with first responders? Who will interface with them? Where will they be directed, and how will they be supported? Meet with these groups so they can have a role in creating and practicing your plan.
- EMTs
- Police
- Local hospital
- Fire
- FEMA
- Outline off-hours procedures. Outline how to handle emergencies that occur at night, over the weekend, or during school vacations. This includes how to contact different constituent groups and what information they will receive.
- Faculty and staff contact information
- Family contact information
- Crisis kit (see description below)
- Create a “crisis kit” that can be used on and off site. These kits must be easy to access and grab when an emergency hits. They should include, at a minimum:
- Plan initiation procedures
- List of team members (and back-ups)
- All critical contact information (including first-responders)
- Cell phone
- NOAA radio
- Maps of the building and the local area
- Evacuation routes
- Alternative sites (outpost) for directing operations
- Have a recovery plan. This outlines how your school will continue running in the aftermath of a tragedy. This can include:
- Facilities issues
- Emotional services
- Further prevention needed
- Create a crisis communication plan. It’s important to have a communication plan in place so your team knows exactly how and what to communicate in different scenarios. We outline this part of the plan here.
- Conduct table-top and activity-based drills to see what works and what gaps may exist. Ensure your school is ready to execute the plans you create.
We hope this outline helps you refine your school’s crisis plans.
Additional ISM Resources:
The Source for Business and Operations Vol. 16 No. 9 Crisis Communication: What’s Your Plan?
The Source for School Heads Vol. 10 No. 6 When (Not If) a Crisis Happens, Will You Be Ready?
Additional ISM resources for members:
I&P Vol. 43 No. 5 The Whys and Hows of Implementing a Crisis Communication Plan
