The Unrelenting Crisis and the Power of Proactive Safety in Schools
The tragic reality of mass violence targeting students in schools persists at an alarming rate. Despite the earnest commitments from educational institutions, governmental bodies, and the private sector to eradicate these horrific acts, they continue to occur. While a singular, perfect solution remains elusive, our collective imperative is to exhaust every resource and strategy within our POWER to prevent such violence and safeguard our school communities. At Clearpath EPM, we firmly believe that the most significant capacity for positive change resides within the proactive engagement and preparedness of the people who constitute these communities and the development and implementation of a comprehensive emergency management plan.
P.O.W.E.R.: A Framework for School Safety and Resilience
To effectively combat the threat of school violence and cultivate safer learning environments, Clearpath EPM advocates for a comprehensive framework built upon the acrostic POWER:
P – PREPAREDNESS: The Foundation of Resilience
School leaders bear the critical responsibility of understanding the specific threats and hazards that their schools may realistically face. This knowledge forms the basis for developing robust preparedness measures, enabling informed and safe responses to a wide range of potential incidents and acts. Preparedness, at its core, is simply the state of being ready for something to happen. Therefore, schools must proactively build resilient social, emotional, and physical safety and security programs that empower the community to respond effectively and safely. A key element of preparedness involves developing realistic safety and security protocols, including an emergency action plan, that acknowledge both internal and external threats and provide comprehensive training to all stakeholders on appropriate multi-hazard incident response strategies.
O – OBSERVATION: The Eyes and Ears of Safety
While schools are inherently dynamic and busy environments, the current safety and security landscape demands that all school personnel cultivate a heightened sense of vigilance and actively observe their surroundings. Comprehensive training and ongoing education are essential to equip everyone with the ability to recognize potential vulnerabilities and emerging threats, and to understand what specific indicators to look for. By fostering a culture of attentive observation, school personnel become the critical first line of defense, capable of more effectively activating the school’s “see something/say something” protocols, leading to timely and appropriate responses from the designated incident management team. Often, it is the swift action taken in mere seconds that can avert a potential crisis and activate the appropriate emergency response plan.
W – WILLINGNESS TO ACT: Courageous and Decisive Leadership
Effective leadership in school safety demands a courageous and decisive stance in prioritizing the protection of students, faculty, and staff above all else. While school leaders possess expertise in curriculum development, teacher professional learning, and facilities management, they may have less specialized knowledge in the complex domains of school safety, security, and emergency preparedness. Therefore, targeted and ongoing training is paramount. Increased knowledge and understanding of security protocols, including the components of an effective emergency plan, directly correlate with a greater willingness and confidence to act decisively in potentially dangerous situations. Proactively seeking guidance from knowledgeable security experts and dedicating school resources to comprehensive emergency planning management will significantly increase the likelihood that leaders will respond with informed and confident action to an incident before it escalates into a full-blown crisis.
E – EDUCATION: Empowering the Community Through Knowledge
Education forms the very core of POWER, as genuine cooperation and effective response during emergencies are predicated on individuals knowing and understanding the “what,” “why,” and “how” of the school’s emergency plan. Comprehensive safety, security, and emergency preparedness education and training programs are essential to empower all school stakeholders – students, teachers, staff, visitors, and parents – to confidently and effectively follow the coordinated emergency response plan. At a minimum, this education should include explicit instruction on the school’s cadre of response protocols and regular, realistic drills. The most critical aspect of all emergency drills is emphasizing the purpose of each protocol and providing clear instruction on how to execute them correctly to maximize safety for everyone involved.
R – RESPONSE: Clear and Coordinated Action
A school may possess a robust emergency preparedness training and education program, but its effectiveness is severely compromised if it lacks the clear and reliable means to announce and communicate the appropriate emergency response protocol in real time during an incident. Without clear communication, chaos and confusion are likely to ensue. Regardless of the communication methods employed (e.g., intercom systems, mass notification platforms, mobile alerts), emergency announcements must be clear, concise, and unambiguous, leaving minimal room for misinterpretation. Industry common practice strongly advises against using vague color codes (such as red, black, or yellow) to indicate specific threats, as the high-stress nature of an emergency can lead to significant confusion. Instead, plain language directives are recommended, such as “Lockdown, we have a confirmed active assailant situation” or “Evacuation, there is smoke detected in Building Five.” When developing emergency communication and emergency operations plans, schools must also prioritize the establishment of reliable backup communication systems to ensure critical information can be disseminated even if primary methods fail.
Founded in 2014, Clearpath EPM is a technology and consulting firm providing risk mitigation and emergency preparedness courses (online, virtual and in-person), consulting services for domestic and international schools, businesses, events and places of worship.
If your organization is in need of building and maintaining robust preparedness plans, policies and procedures, please contact us.
