August 19, 2010
School districts across the country will be able to improve and strengthen their emergency management plans as a result of $28.8 million in grants awarded today by the U.S. Department of Education. The Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools (REMS) discretionary grant program will enable 98 school districts in 28 states to improve plans that address all four phases of emergency management: Prevention-Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery.
“No student should feel unsafe in school,” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said. “The fact is that no school can be a great school until it is a safe school first, and these grants will support that effort.”
In these cost-conscience times, having funds to improve emergency preparedness is an essential component of any school district’s program. In keeping with that philosophy, SafePlans has developed a value-oriented solution that helps keep more grant dollars within the district’s community.
Visit http://www.remsgrant.com to learn more about how SafePlans can assist with your REMS preparedness efforts.
The Missouri School Boards’ Association is putting on a Coordinated School Safety Conference July 22nd & 23rd at the Tan-Tar-A Resort at theLake of the Ozarks (http://www.schoolsafetyconference.com).
School safety conferences are a great way for school administrators to keep abreast of “best practices” and establish a network of professionals that possess a common interest in making schools even safer. School administrators should try to attend a conference with someone from their local law enforcement, fire and/or emergency management agency. This can help foster discussions back home and strengthen relationships between stakeholders.
Pre-conference events (a US Department of Homeland Security certified workshop titled “Understanding and Planning for Campus Bomb Incidents” and a screening of the film “CUT: Teens and Self Injury”) commence on Wednesday, July 21.
Hope to see you there.
Stay Safe,
Brad
This weekend’s storms exhibited a tragic reminder of the importance of all-hazards planning. It is all too easy to focus on events like bomb threats, school shootings and overlook severe weather preparedness. While a school is obviously at the mercy of the storm as to where a tornado appears, a great deal can be done to prepare for and mitigate the effects of a tornado or extreme winds.
In the way of preparedness here are some recommended steps that go beyond the standard severe weahter shelter plans:
Pre-Planning
• Work with local emergency management officials to determine severe weather shelter areas
• Consider Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training for select staff
• Conduct drills to test communications (to include mass notificaiton) and movement to shelter assignments
• Preplan evacuation routes and rally points (avoiding power lines) in the event the school becomes damages and unsafe
When Severe Weather is a Possibility:• Assign staff to monitor weather
• Ensure radios (two-way/walkie-talkies and weather radios) are charged and conduct a staff meeting to review plans
• Consider special events, outdoor activities and bus times
When a Severe Weather Watch Occurs:
• Establish an interior command post
• Ask teachers to review severe weather plans
• Increase staff monitoring during transition times and meal periods
• Compare estimated storm impact with release times. Make plans to hold students and communicate with parents.
When a Severe Weather Warning Occurs:•
Enact severe weather plans
Always collaborate with your local response agencies on emergency planning issues.
Stay safe!
Brad
This post is provided by SafePlans (www.safeplans.com), an all-hazards preparedness solution including emergency plans, staff training, and detailed site mapping.
Click here to learn more about the author
The heroic actions of teacher David Benke at Deer Creek Middle School is certain to generate interest in instructing teachers to fight back when confronted with an armed attacker in our nation’s schools and colleges. Certainly the thought of having teachers (and even students) fight back against a gunman can seem incredible, counter-intuitive and extreme. Luckily no one ever David Benke that his thoughts of doing everything he could to save students were too extreme. Mr. Benke is not the first person to stop a school shooter with an active of selfless courage.
Continue Reading…
Grant applications are now being accepted for the US Dept of Ed Readiness & Emergency Management for Schools grant. The deadline is Feb. 26, 2010 and these grants are highly competitive.
LINK TO GRANT HOMEPAGE
The following is taken from the Dept. of Ed Website:
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
This grant program supports efforts by LEAs to create, strengthen, and improve emergency management plans at the district and school-building levels, including training school personnel on emergency management procedures; communicating with parents about emergency plans and procedures; and coordinating with local law enforcement, public safety or emergency management, public health, and mental health agencies and local government.
TYPES OF PROJECTS
Grant funds may be used for the following activities: reviewing and revising emergency management plans, training school staff, conducting building and facilities audits, communicating emergency response policies to parents and guardians, implementing the National Incident Management System (NIMS), developing an infectious disease plan, developing or revising food defense plans, purchasing school safety equipment (to a limited extent), conducting drills and tabletop simulation exercises; and preparing and distributing copies of emergency management plans.
SafePlans is able to provide general recommendations to assist applicants, but as we will compete for grant funds, we do not write grants for applicants.
“Emergency response is a product of preparedness. On the morning of September 11, 2001, the last best hope for the community of people working in or visiting the World Trade Center rested not with national policymakers, but with private firms and local public servants, especially the first responders: fire, police, emergency medical service and building safety professionals.”
(The 9/11 Commission Report, page 278)
September is National Preparedness Month!
“Today marks the beginning of National Preparedness Month, an opportunity for our nation’s families and communities to discuss their plans if they were faced with an emergency.Protecting the United States from threats like terrorism, natural disasters, and infectious diseases is a shared responsibility and everyone has an important role to play” – Janet Napolitano, Secretary, Homeland Security, September 2, 2009
SafePlans is proud to be a part of our emergency preparedness community.
Secretary Napolitano was in New York today [September 2] to introduce a series of new public service advertisement (PSAs) produced for the Ready Campaign (http://www.ready.gov/). The Ready Campaign’s mission is to inform and educate the public on how to best prepare for a major disaster,
http://www.ready.gov/america/about/psa.html
Stay connected with current events! SafePlans posts updates on Twitter to help inform our safety & emergency planning community of events and important news.
Twitter is very easy to use. Follow the steps below and you will be up and running in minutes.
1. Sign up for A Free Twitter Account: http://twitter.com
2. Go to our Twitter Account at http://twitter.com/educationsafety
3. Below the educationsafety logo click “Follow”. You will begin to receive the news feeds at your Twitter account on your computer or phone.
Twitter is also a great way for school districts and colleges to communicate with parents, students and faculty at no cost! Twitter can be used to announce closings for snow days, reminders of upcoming events and be used to direct people to a website for more information. As with any mass notification solution, Twitter should not be the core focus on your emergency preparedness efforts. The due diligence of planning and training simply cannot be replaced with text message.
Stay Safe
As more and more school campuses are forced to confront bomb threats and conduct drills for attacks such as Columbine and the Virginia Tech shooting, an area of concern is the continued use of code phrases to alert school staff. The desire to use codes is understandable. An intercom announcement stating “We have just received a bomb threat.” is hardly precursor to a successful response.
However, the more important the message, the more vital it is that everyone understands. A substitute teacher not knowing that an announcement of “Mr. Smith is in the building” or “Code Orange” means to implement a lockdown, needlessly puts lives in danger. When confronted with a situation that could pose immediate danger to students and staff, school administrators should use plain language to communicate the hazard. An example for a dangerous intruder could be “We have an intruder in the building. Students report immediately to the nearest classroom. Teachers implement a lock down. Police are on the way.” Will this cause anxiety yes. Is there another way to ensure that everyone in the building knows what to do? I can’t think of one.
For situations that are slightly less eminent, such as a bomb threat, announcing “Teachers restrict hallway access. Students report directly to your next scheduled class” should elicit the desired response of controlling student movement, while not creating an undue panic.
A school administrator shared with me a real-world experience regarding the use of codes in an elementary school. A teacher was expecting her first child and coordinated with the secretary a way to communicate to the school staff news of the new arrival. One morning the secretary went on the school’s intercom and excitedly announced “Attention teachers, Code Blue.” Students hid, doors were hurriedly locked, and panic ensued all because the teacher had just delivered a baby boy…
Don’t count on the use of a code phrase to deliver information that could save lives and remember coordinate your plans and drills with your local response agencies!
This post is provided by SafePlans (www.safeplans.com), an all-hazards preparedness solution including emergency plans, staff training, and detailed site mapping.
Click here to learn more about the author
SafePlans is offering a free pandemic planning web-conference for educators and public health officials. A link to registration is located on the SchoolSafetyNews.com homepage.
The recent declaration of a public health emergency over the swine flu cases in the U.S. and Mexico highlights the importance of public health and [pandemic planning. An influenza-based public health emergency and/or pandemic has always been a question of “when” not “if” and while it was assumed a new strain of /avian flu would be the culprit, experts emphasized a pandemic can be caused by any new virus.
It is not known if this particular “swine flu” virus could even lead to a pandemic; but planning for a Pandemic event requires strategies unlike any other disaster. This is primarily due to the facts that when a pandemic occurs we will 1) see it coming, 2) be unable to stop it, 3) be forced to deal with exposure concerns for over one year and 4) will take several years to recover.
What Is an Influenza Pandemic?
A pandemic is defined as a global disease outbreak. An influenza pandemic occurs when a new influenza virus emerges for which there is little or no immunity in the human population, begins to cause serious illness and then spreads easily person-to-person worldwide.
Historically, the 20th century saw 3 pandemics of influenza:
- 1918 influenza pandemic caused at least 500,000 U.S. deaths and up to 40 million deaths worldwide
- 1957 influenza pandemic caused at least 70,000 U.S. deaths and 1-2 million deaths worldwide
- 1968 influenza pandemic caused about 34,000 U.S. deaths and 700,000 deaths worldwide
Characteristics and challenges of a pandemic
- Rapid Worldwide Spread
- Health Care Systems Overloaded
- Medical Supplies Inadequate
- Economic and Social Disruption
Communications and Information are Critical Components of Pandemic Response
Education and outreach are critical to preparing for a pandemic. Understanding what a pandemic is, what needs to be done at all levels to prepare for pandemic influenza, and what could happen during a pandemic helps us make informed decisions both as individuals and as a nation. Should a pandemic occur the public must be able to depend on its government to provide scientifically sound public health information quickly, openly and dependably.
What Can Be Done?
While there is nothing a government, school district or business can do to prevent the onset of a pandemic, there is an enormous opportunity to mitigate its effects via planning and training. These preparedness measures should focus on three key stages:
- Preparedness
- Response
- Recovery
Continue Reading…
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