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Emergency Response Crisis Management School Emergency Response |
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Emergency Response Crisis Management Grant Project | ||
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BACKGROUND School safety and security is an ever increasing societal issue. The tragic shootings at West Paducah High School in December of 1997 prompted President Clinton to direct the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education to prepare for the first time an annual report on school safety. Since, a roll call of infamous incidents involving schools such as Jonesboro, Arkansas; Columbine, Colorado; and Red Lake, Minnesota to name a few have left us shaken and felling vulnerable. Terrorism, domestic or otherwise, can and has caught us all off-guard with dire consequences. Natural disasters such as recent Panhandle wildfires, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and flooding in Hawaii are just a few reminders of the power and indiscriminate destruction of Mother Nature. Communities and particularly schools are not exempt from these hazards. Grant Status Since 2003 the federal government, via the Departments of Homeland Security and Education, has been offering funding to school districts in the form of competitive grants. In 2004, several school districts within the Public Workers Compensation Program (PWCP) prepared, submitted and won a competitive grant to further their emergency response plans and overall preparedness to hazards that they could realistically face. The ultimate purpose of the grant was and is to provide for the safety of students, teachers and administrators in these participating districts. As of the spring of 2006, 343 grants from $50,000 to $500,000 have been awarded either to individual school districts or to district consortia for the purpose of strengthening emergency response and crisis management at the school campus and district levels throughout schools in the U.S. GRANT STATUS Participating PWCP districts have re-written and aligned their emergency operations plans with local county plans, consistent with state and federal National Incident Management System guidelines. Key district personnel have undergone training in plan development and in the four aspects of Emergency Response Crisis Management: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. Key district personnel have developed or strengthened relationships with local response and support agencies via this process. Districts are developing communications for stakeholders within their districts to include parents, students, and employees. Each district is or has recently conducted either table-top or mock exercises to test their training and the effectiveness of their new plan. This website is a means for 1) grant recipient member district to continue to share experiences and information to sustain their efforts on the ERCM improvement continuum, and 2) to provide a clearinghouse of resources and information to stakeholders and interested parties. Edwards Risk Management’ role has been to assist with the grant procurement and with assisting with the implementation of the grant’s stated objectives for the PWCP participating districts. |
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