Betsy Fera
As I was thinking of what to write for this month column, I found myself experiencing a serious case of writer’s block. In fact, I had even resorted to asking a colleague for ideas. Little did I know that I would find the topic for this column the very next day, in a very unlikely way.
For the first time in my school’s history, we had to use our emergency plan in an evacuation.
Our school is very close to Interstate 10, which turned out to be the scene of a very tragic accident involving two semi-vehicles, one of which was carrying diesel fuel. During our morning drop-off, we heard some explosions and then saw a large plume of dark smoke approaching our school. I made some initial calls but was able to obtain little information about what was happening and what we needed to be aware of. I had just made the decision to keep kids inside from morning PE and to try to stay in the classrooms as much as possible when the Phoenix police arrived, telling us we had to evacuate. Since our emergency plan had us going to the school next door, that wasn’t going to work, so we made the decision to send our students home.
All in all the evacuation went extremely well. We were able to get all of the students safely out and with their parents in a timely manner. Every staff member quickly became part of a team and everyone took direction and remained calm and reassuring for our students. We received many emails and phone calls complimenting our decision and the manner in which we evacuated.
However, as with any experience like this, there was some room for improvement. From this experience I learned the following:
- Have an emergency plan that includes a plan for evacuation from the school to home (early dismissal). We had an evacuation to a different site, reverse evacuation, but not an early dismissal procedure. This plan needs to include identified roles for every team member and dismissal procedures similar to the other plans we already have in place.
- Make sure everyone has the correct communication tools (radios). We realized we were a few short in some key positions during the evacuation.
- Have a call system that can quickly place calls/texts/emails to parents. Our current call system proved to be extremely slow, and emails didn’t reach all of our parents.
- Make sure to have a Plan B for calling parents in case the system is not working properly.
- Communication is key to parents and staff during this process. Having a process to keep parents updated and staff aware of what is going on is key to keeping everyone calm.
- I work with an amazing staff that is professional, flexible, and defines the concept of a team.
Perhaps the biggest revelation was the realization that an emergency really can happen! I will approach and look at drills in a different way now that we have experienced this real event. When we revise our emergency plan each year, I know I will look at it through entirely different eyes.
With the start of the 2011-2012 school year, Betsy Fera begins her first year as Executive Director of Horizon Community Learning Center in Phoenix. She has previously worked as a teacher, Master Teacher, and Media Specialist at Horizon Community Learning Center. In the past few years, she was the TAP Systems Director for Arizona State University, working on education reform in the College of Education. She can be reached at betsy.fera@horizonclc.org.
