A. OVERVIEW AND RATIONALE
OVERVIEW
Lee County Public Schools has developed procedures for dealing with existing and potential student and school crises. The Comprehensive Crisis Management plan includes Intervention Procedures, Crisis Response Procedures, and Critical Incident Procedures. An important component of the Plan is a set of interagency agreements with various county agencies to aid timely communication and help coordinate services between the agencies and individual schools or the entire school division.
Intervention Procedures provide a systematic process for identifying, referring, and assessing students who may be suicidal or represent a potential threat to others. Crisis teams established in each school provide immediate intervention with referred students. Team members have been trained to assess the seriousness of the situation and respond according to specific guidelines. The team gathers information from other sources, chooses a team member to interview the referred student, develops a plan, directs the student and family to appropriate help, appoints a case manager, and provides follow-up. Additionally, schools regularly provide inservice training to faculty and staff about recognizing students in crisis and on referral procedures.
Crisis Response Procedures guide staff in responding to more frequently occurring crises such as deaths of students or teachers and other traumatic events, which can affect the school community for days. These procedures are intended to be time-limited, problem-focused interventions designed to identify and resolve the crisis, restore equilibrium, and support productive responses. The crisis team uses crisis response procedures to help administrators:
· Gather information;
· Establish communication with the family;
· Disseminate accurate information to faculty and students;
· Intervene directly with students most likely to be affected;
· Increase the available supportive counseling for students
and staff; and
· Guide students in helpful ways to remember the deceased.
Critical Incident Procedures help school personnel handle potentially dangerous events such as an armed intruder in a school and other life-threatening events. The school division has developed a plan, which emphasizes a coordinated interagency approach. A Code Blue has been established in all school buildings to provide a uniform method of warning staff and students of high-risk situations involving imminent danger to life or limb.
RATIONALE
Lee County Public Schools Crisis Management Plan procedures provide
benefits for students, parents, and the school division. The procedures
provide an organized, systematic method for helping students. Staff members
know under what circumstances and how to refer a student for help. Crisis
Team members operate within specific guidelines to make collaborative decisions,
sharing the responsibility of these often difficult, stressful situations.
Parents and other members of the community are assured that the school
division has established procedures, which provide for needed intervention
with troubled students and better prepare schools to respond to crises.
B. CENTRAL OFFICE CRISIS PLANNING AND RESPONSE TEAM
Assigned Roles as Needed for School Division Staff During a School
Emergency
1. Superintendent
· Direct all operations of the division in the management of
the emergency.
· Gather information from all aspects of the emergency for use
in making appropriate decisions about the management of the emergency.
· Assess the emergency situation and assign tasks based on the
overall needs for managing the emergency.
· Direct all activities of division and school staff in the
management of the emergency.
· Stay in contact with the leaders of the emergency service
agencies and the law enforcement agencies working with the emergency.
· Authorize the release of information to the public.
· Keep School Board informed of emergency status.
· The superintendent�s designee shall serve in this capacity
in his/her absence.
2. Superintendent's Designee and School Board Office Staff
· From the division offices, direct all division office staff.
· Establish and maintain lines of communication between the
division and the emergency site; for off campus emergency, lines of communication
must be established for the involved school, as well. Such lines
of communication may also include couriers.
· Manage the professional and non-professional staff from the
district office.
· Assign resources (persons and materials) to various sites
for specific needs.
· Communicate with other schools in the division during the
emergency period.
· Arrange for the delivery of outside services and materials
needed for the management of the emergency.
· Establish and implement plan for crisis; form and coordinate
crisis teams with key school board office staff.
· Maintain active file of helping agencies within the community;
the names of contact person will be included.
· Maintain active file of community persons, such as counselors,
doctors, psychologists, ministers; information regarding services and follow-up
services will be included.
· Create letters whenever necessary to notify parents of continuing
care that is available to students; available care will include local and
state agencies, as well as school-based care.
· Develop information sheet for parents, teachers, and others;
information will include topics such as talking with students, signs of
depression, and others relating to crisis stress.
· Develop schedule for activities for the first day of school
following the crisis with support services.
· Maintain follow-up activities such as referrals for help outside
the school services setting.
· Report immediately to the local hospital if students or adults
are being sent to that hospital for treatment. If more than one hospital
is admitting students or adults, coordinate communication among those hospitals
and the division. Assign and direct other division staff to assist in those
hospitals.
· Coordinate communication between the hospital and the division
office.
· Meet and talk with the parents of students and spouses of
adults who have been admitted to the hospital.
· Develop plans and scenarios in which division technological
resources can be dispersed effectively to emergency sites.
· Handle overflow telephone calls at the emergency site.
· Make recommendations regarding the restarting of school activities
from support services.
· Serve as a liaison between the emergency school site and the
emergency support teams that may be needed.
· Coordinate and direct communication between the emergency
site and county and state agencies.
· Obtain and direct the placement of generators when power must
be restored for a temporary period. Coordinate and direct the acquisition
of water when there is a disruption of water and sewer services.
· Coordinate and direct contact with emergency medical services,
local police and sheriff�s departments, fire departments, and the highway
patrol.
· Coordinate and direct search-and-rescue operations when needed.
· Supervise the use of the school computer system for communication
with the district office and electronic bulletin board system.
· As needed, report various sites involved in the communication
system if there are problems in that system.
· Provide technical support for all communications hardware
and software.
· Plan and initiate arrangements for food for building personnel.
· Notify risk management of emergency.
· Coordinate with director of transportation as needed.
· Arrange for the payment of monies needed to respond to emergency
situations; authorize purchases and payments for such resources.
· Collect and disseminate information to the media. Be aware
of deadlines, the need for information accuracy, and other issues related
to the media and the performance of their jobs.
· Plan and coordinate press interviews to help the news media
meet deadlines.
· Create and disseminate press releases.
· Respond to rumors through the dissemination of accurate information.
· Organize a network of key people (police, fire, health) within
the community through which accurate information can be disseminated.
· Be aware of the requirements of the Freedom of Information
Act and provide all appropriate information based on those requirements.
· Plan and coordinate the use of the Division�s cable television
channel for live and taped presentations. Press conferences can go out
live; updates for the public can be taped and aired as needed.
· Coordinate information to be shared with school and division
personnel during and after the crisis.
· Act as a liaison between the media and division personnel
whose attention must be focused on the immediate problems of managing the
crisis without constant interruption.
· Arrange interviews for the media with key school and division
staff that are involved in the emergency or who act as spokespersons for
the division.
· Establish and maintain a clearinghouse for calls and requests
from schools, the community, parents, and the media and refer those to
the appropriate person or place.
3. Principals
A. SCHOOL CRISIS
· Be familiar with central office support available to principals.
· Make school crisis plan, crisis management handbook, and emergency
management kit readily available to appropriate staff.
B. DIVISIONS CRISIS
· Remain at respective schools until the end of the school day.
· When all students and staff members have left campus for the
day, be prepared to report to the Superintendent/designee.
· Perform tasks assigned by Superintendent/designee
C. ANNUAL START-UP PROCEDURES FOR ALL SCHOOLS
1. Confirm membership of the crisis team.
2. Send a list of team members to the School Board Office.
3. Decide on a coordinator and substitute for synchronizing suicide
intervention, critical incident, and postvention procedures.
4. Plan at least two crisis team meetings. It is mandatory that crisis
teams meet prior to the beginning of the school year and one other time
during the school year to review procedures, especially critical incidents,
and check equipment such as crisis boxes.
5. Inform faculty of crisis members. Print intervention, crisis response
and critical incident procedures in the faculty handbook.
6. Review critical incident communication codes with faculty and staff.
7. Update faculty phone tree.
8. The team needs to not only review procedures annually, but should
go through at least two scenarios using the Postvention Steps form. The
key to successfully handling an incident is the preparation before the
event.
9. Meet with new staff members annually to inform them of intervention,
crisis response critical incident procedures, emphasizing the referral
process for crisis intervention.
10. Hold a general faculty/staff inservice on intervention, crisis
response and critical incident procedures every two years or as needed.