This activity is designed to enhance your understanding of the event content through hands-on learning. You will be asked to perform a series of tasks and then reflect on your experience.

Objective

To review your school's crisis response plan (or another school's, if yours is unavailable) and determine whether it is up to date or requires changes. You may not be able to complete this activity in one day. You can use whatever parts that you cannot finish as a template for the first steps in crisis response planning. Much of this work will be done as part of a crisis team.

Overview

The first step in crisis response planning is to determine whether your school has a plan and, if possible, obtain a copy. From there you can review the plan and see if changes need to be made in terms of membership, duties, practice, and types of crises envisioned. School districts often have crisis plans that local schools can adapt as long as they follow district policy. This activity is designed to help MSCs ensure that their school's crisis plans are up to date, familiar to key participants, and consistent with the school's overall safety plan.

Please review the materials from Planning and Preparing for a Crisis and Additions to School Safety Plans before beginning this activity. After completing this activity, please share your results and comments in the event's Discussion Area.

Part 1: Reviewing the Crisis Plan

For the first part of this activity, you will obtain a copy of your school's crisis plan and review it.

Step 1
Obtain a copy of your school's crisis plan. If your school does not have a plan, find out if a district-level plan exists, and obtain a copy of that plan. You can also go on the Internet and do a search for sample school crisis plans.

Step 2
Review the crisis plan. Make a note of anything that seems unclear to you. Ask yourself if any key elements are missing, such as a plan for a national terrorist attack or guidelines to assess for trauma in students.

Step 3
Find out whether your school has an active crisis team. If so, who are the members, and do they know that they are part of the team? Who heads the team? Are there people who should be on the team but are not, such as the head custodian, school security officer, school social worker, and school nurse? Make a list of those people.

Step 4
Ask for a meeting of the crisis team, if one exists. If it does not, then work with key staff, such as counselors, to form one.

Step 5
Hold a meeting of the crisis team. At the first meeting, ask members to review past crises in the school. What worked and what did not work? Assign tasks to each member, using Building a School-Based Crisis Team and Protocol for Dealing with a Crisis as a guide.

Please respond to the discussion questions that appear at the end of Day 1.