While a written plan is often required for accreditation or regulatory purposes, the process is more important than writing the plan as the traditional written plan usually sits in a binder or folder and would never be pulled out in the middle of an imminent threat response.
What should be included in my School’s Emergency Operations Plan?
A typical plan would contain the following components:
I.Mission/Policy Statement (essentially your Campus Resiliency Team mission). Most organizational charters start with a mission or policy statement. A school likely has a mission statement, and so should the Campus Resiliency Team. A CRT mission statement should state the basic duties (who, when, where, why, how) in a very brief and succinct manner. A sample CRT mission statement might look like this:
The Campus Resiliency Team (“CRT”) is staffed by designated faculty and staff members. The CRT is the team delegated the responsibility for initiating the Emergency Operations Plan for the campus.
The CRT will be those who make decisions and take any action required during the initial stages of a disruptive event or incident. This is the school’s first response team and is also responsible for preparing their campus’ responses to potential threats or hazards. Their duties include, but are not limited to:
Monitoring potentially hazardous weather and other threats or potentially disruptive local conditions;
Contacting outside first responders in the case of an emergency;
Implementing the Plan in the case of an actual emergency;
Communicating with the Head of School, Superintendent, or Board as needed;
Conducting training and drills on the campus’ quick action emergency response protocols;
Working with all school stakeholders to help identify and mitigate any vulnerabilities that could impact the safety or security of their campus’ operations.
II. Chain of Command (Delegation of Authority): Who’s in charge and what is their authority as delegated by the Board or Superintendent?
III. Communication Protocols: These are the quick action emergency response protocols such as evacuation or lockdown as well as other planned responses to slower developing threats and hazards.
IV. Response Procedures and Protocols: These are the quick action emergency response protocols such as evacuation or lockdown as well as other planned responses to slower developing threats and hazards.
V. Recovery Procedures (Business/Academic Continuity): These pertain to how a school will recover from a disruptive event and return to a normal operating environment.
VI. Transportation Safety Procedures and Protocols: These detail the bus and travel safety policies, procedures and protocols.
VII. Pandemic Plan: This is the school’s detailed response to a pandemic.
VIII. Critical Resources: These are campus and area maps, building and equipment diagrams, equipment, and supplies.
IX. Test and Validation Procedures: These detail the school’s preparedness training and drill procedures, the drill vetting and validation process and overall training documentation.
X. Annexes: This is where a school details its contact lists, outside support services, and Memorandums of Understanding or MOUs.
Making Plans for a Pandemic
You’ll note that component VII is a pandemic plan. Prior to the COVID-19, most schools, with a few exceptions, would never have had a detailed pandemic plan, which may have been part of the problem. Pandemics have been a part of our human experience for hundreds and thousands of years, yet no one in the modern era could have envisioned one with the magnitude and worldwide reach of COVID-19.
As a result of this lack of robust planning, schools have been left to prepare and recover on the fly. In other words, reacting to events as opposed to responding with a predetermined emergency operations or action plan. Hopefully, all of us, and especially our schools, have learned a hard lesson about preparedness as the world will suffer pandemics in the future, and likely more coronaviruses.
Going forward, schools should have a specific component within their Emergency Operations Plan that details all the good things now in use as we recover from COVID-19. Put all the best practices in use now in your pandemic plan. Also, in addition to the pandemic plan, every component within your school’s Emergency Operations or Action Plan should address pandemics.
For example, under VIII. Critical Resources, schools should document the maps and diagrams of pedestrian traffic flow and social distancing in use, and COVID-related safety equipment and supplies.
Building a safe and resilient school environment requires a school to first assess and evaluate the potential threats, hazards, and other disruptions it could face. Once the threats are identified, the school must develop a safety and security plan to mitigate and lower the risks. And finally, robust planning and training must be initiated to prepare the school to respond to the various threat scenarios.
Pandemics like COVID-19 are going to continue to threaten schools around the world and every school should be prepared to respond to the next one.
Clearpath EPM’s Pandemic Response Procedures
Founded in 2014, Clearpath EPM is a technology and consulting firm providing risk mitigation and emergency preparedness consulting services to domestic and international schools, businesses, events and places of worship.
If your school, business, or place of worship is in need of building and maintaining robust pandemic policies and procedures, please feel free to contact us.
