Clearinghouse on Educational Management College of Education · University of Oregon
	"Search Help" Note that this is a web site search and will not search our databases ("Directory of Organizations", "In-Process Abstracts", the ERIC Database, "Publications").	Trends and Issues: School Safety Abstracts Bulletin Discussion Links References Resources Action Bulletin--2000 Crisis Prevention and Response: Is Your School Prepared? By Cathy Paine and Jeffrey Sprague Perhaps no issue in recent years has galvanized public concern in the way that school violence has. The specter of violent and antisocial behavior in our schools breeds fear, and media coverage of recent school shootings adds to the perception that schools are inherently unsafe and our communities and families are at risk. Increasingly, school administrators and staff members have to deal with deadly violent incidents and threats of violence from students and others. Developing comprehensive school safety plans has become an essential part of school-improvement planning. School leaders should make crisis response an ongoing, integral part of school-improvement planning. This Action Bulletin outlines some of the essential components of a school crisis-response plan and provides a list of additional resources in this area. Critical Components of a Comprehensive Safe-School Plan Safety plans are an essential part of the school-improvement process and must be based on valid, reliable data regarding risk and protective factors. Following are components that should be part of a comprehensive school safety plan (Paine and Sprague 2000; Sprague, Colvin, Irvin, and Stieber 1996): 1. Community collaboration. Community agencies such as the police, church groups, social-service agencies, and the local media should be involved in safe-school planning and intervention. Increasingly, schools employ police personnel (school resource officers) to provide supervision in and around school campuses and to serve as instructors for units on drug abuse or violence prevention. 2. Anti-violence curriculum. Systematic instruction in positive social behaviors teaches students skills such as peer mediation or conflict resolution (Shepherd 1994), appropriate classroom and recess behavior (Walker and Hops 1993), empathy (Embry and Flannery 1994), and avoidance of drugs and alcohol. 3. Preventative student-discipline policies and procedures. An effective, proactive school-discipline plan is essential in maintaining a school environment that is safe. School-discipline plans should address schoolwide discipline (Colvin, Kameenui, and Sugai 1993; Sprick, Sprick, and Garrison 1992); management of specific school functions such as assemblies or special events such as sports; classroom management; and individual student assessment and intervention (O’Neill and others 1997). 4. Safe physical environment. The nature of the school’s physical plant and surroundings also needs to be considered when developing a safe-school plan. The school grounds should be assessed for such things as ease of access by dangerous individuals and natural barriers to surveillance. School personnel should evaluate the building for such things as extent of visual surveillance, number of open-access doors, security systems, communication between classrooms and the main office, and restroom design (Schneider, Walker, and Sprague 2000). 5. Staff and student training and support. As with any procedure, a comprehensive plan for training and educating staff and students about safety-related issues will be needed. Most of us practiced fire drills in school, and other emergency-response behaviors are worthy of the same level of attention. Without training and information about expected behavior in an emergency, each staff member may respond differently to dangerous events, exacerbating the crisis. 6. Crisis-response plan. Typically, people refuse to believe that a crisis could happen to them, and school personnel are no exception. But this tendency toward denial must be replaced by active planning and preparation for a potential school crisis. Careful planning is required to reduce the impact of low-incidence crises such as natural disasters, murders, suicides, or fires. Crisis Prevention and Response: Is Your School Prepared? Although the likelihood of a serious violent incident in a school is extremely low (U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Education 1999), schools need to be prepared for a range of other crises such as the death of a student or staff member, violent incidents, and extreme weather. A comprehensive crisis-response plan must be developed and distributed. Staff, students, and family members need to be informed and trained in implementing specific crisis plans in response to a range of possible traumatic events. Before a Crisis: Preparation Form a crisis-response team within the school. The first step is to identify a group of individuals who can serve as members of a crisis team. The primary goal of this team is to assist a school in responding during and after a crisis. Staff trained in crisis intervention may be called in from other buildings if needed to provide immediate support to staff at the school. A team approach to crisis response can: • reduce the fear and anxiety that accompanies a crisis • educate students and staff in the dynamics of grief and prepare them for what they might experience • give members of the school community an opportunity to express their feelings in an accepting environment Develop a written crisis- or emergency-response plan. Each school district should develop a written crisis-response plan that describes intervention procedures and the responsibilities of the team members. The plan should address topics such as duties of specific crisis team members, phone-tree directions, activities to help students deal with a loss, media guidelines, communications guidelines, memorials and healing events, tips for handling special situations, grief and loss reactions in children and adults, and long-term followup. Table 1 lists suggested staff responsibilities. Coordinate the plan with community emergency personnel. Once a rough draft of the plan is developed, engage the police, fire, rescue, hospital, and mental-health services personnel in the community in reviewing the plan. Develop strategies to coordinate the efforts of each of these agencies in case of a large-scale crisis. Provide maps of all school buildings to the law enforcement, fire department, and emergency personnel, including the location of important switches and valves. In addition, conduct "mock" emergency drills to test the plan, including both lock-down and evacuation procedures. Conduct training for staff, including information on the elements of the plan. This is the only way to ensure rapid and sensitive response during an actual crisis. During a Crisis: What Are the Steps? Table 2 lists the major steps of a crisis-response procedure (Dwyer, Osher, and Warger 1998; Paine 1994). Immediate-, medium-, and long-term responses will be required. School leaders will need to deal with emergency personnel, communications, the media, parents, teachers, and students. Communications. Rapid, clear communication is important during a crisis. In large-scale crises, radios and cell phones may be needed if phone lines become overloaded. Following the shooting at Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon, all the school phone lines jammed, and no incoming or outgoing calls were possible for a time. Additional phone lines, staffed by live operators, should be available to handle a surge in requests for information. Media. The communications officer or designee should handle all media communications during a crisis. This person should update information frequently and control rumors during a crisis through scheduled press conferences held away from the site of the event. In general, it is best not to allow the media on school grounds, or, if necessary, only when students are not present. Returning to the scene. Often it is difficult for students and staff to return to the location where a traumatic event occurred. The Crisis Team may need to design a plan that makes it easier for victims to adjust and return to the school. For example, following the tragedy at Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon, on May 21, 1998, an open house was held on Memorial Day to allow students, staff, and their families to return to campus. More than 2,000 people sat or stood in the repaired cafeteria that day, though many were unable to enter the scene of such terrible violence. After a Crisis: Followup Procedures Memorial services, funerals, and healing events. School-sponsored memorials and other rituals serve an important function in the grief process for students and staff. Memorials promote the healing process by providing an opportunity for students to join together and participate in a ritual. A memorial may take many forms, from a simple tree planting to a more traditional "service." In addition, a school memorial gives permission and legitimacy to the process of grieving and also may mark the beginning of a return to some semblance of normalcy in school-based routines. It may be appropriate to dismiss school early to allow students and staff to attend a funeral or memorial. Community healing events, such as the candlelight vigil held in Springfield in May 1998, serve an important function in the healing process. Permanent memorials. It is important to involve parents, teachers, students, victims and their families, and other community members in the planning and design of a memorial and to establish who will make the final decisions. Carefully consider the nature and location of any permanent memorial. Grief and loss support. Following a crisis, staff, students, and team members are usually exhausted and wish things could just return to "normal." The school community, however, may be permanently affected both by the loss itself and by the collective grief of students and staff. It is critical that school personnel recognize the long-term impact of a death or other tragedy and provide support for staff members and students. Discipline problems often arise when grief or loss issues are not expressed and worked through. Recognize that the need for support may continue for months, even years, after a crisis (Alexander 1999). Crisis-response evaluation. Within two weeks of a crisis intervention, the Crisis Response Team should elicit feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of their response. Ideally, the facilitator should be an impartial individual who is not a member of the crisis team. See Paine and Sprague (2000) for a sample evaluation questionnaire. References Alexander, D. W. Children Changed by Trauma: A Healing Guide. Oakland, California: New Harbinger Publications, Inc., 1999. Colvin, G.; E. J. Kameenui; and G. Sugai. "School-wide and Classroom Management: Reconceptualizing the Integration and Management of Students with Behavior Problems in General Education." Education and Treatment of Children 16 (1993): 361-81. Dwyer, K.; D. Osher; and C. Warger. Early Warning, Timely Response: A Guide to Safe Schools. Washington, DC: U. S. Department of Education, 1998. Embry, D. D., and D. J. Flannery. Peacebuilders--Reducing Youth Violence: A Working Application of Cognitive-Social-Imitative Competence Research. Tucson, Arizona: Heartsprings, Inc., 1994. O’Neill, R. E.; R. H. Horner; R. W. Albin; J. R. Sprague; S. Newton; and K. Storey. Functional Assessment and Program Development for Problem Behavior: A Practical Handbook. Second Edition. Pacific Grove, California: Brookes/Cole Publishing, 1997. Paine, C. Administrator’s Guide to Crisis Response. Springfield, Oregon: Springfield School District, 1994. Paine, C., and J. Sprague. Crisis Prevention and Response: Is Your School Prepared? Eugene, Oregon: Oregon School Study Council Bulletin, Winter 2000. Schneider, T.; H. M. Walker; and J. R. Sprague. Safe School Design: A Handbook for Educational Leaders. Eugene, Oregon: ERIC Clearinghouse on Educational Management, 2000. Shepherd, K. K. "Stemming Conflict Through Peer Mediation." The School Administrator 51 (1994): 14-17. Sprague, J.; G. Colvin; L. Irvin; and S. Stieber. "Assessing School Safety in Oregon: How Do School Principals Respond?" Effective School Practices 17, 2 (1998): 36-44. Sprick, R.; M. Sprick; and M. Garrison. Foundations: Developing Positive School-Wide Discipline Policies. Longmont, Colorado: Sopris West, 1992. U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Education. First Annual Report on School Safety. Washington, DC: Author, 1998. Walker, H. M., and H. Hops. The RECESS Program (Reprogramming Environmental Contingencies for Effective Social Skills). Seattle, Washington: Educational Achievement Systems, Inc., 1993. Cathy Paine is coordinator of Special Services for the Springfield School District and has 10 years' experience as a crisis responder, including coleading the school team that responded following the school shooting in Springfield, Oregon in 1998. Jeffrey Sprague is codirector of the Institute on Violence and Destructive Behavior at the University of Oregon and an expert in school safety, violence prevention, delinquency, and evaluation of programs in delinquency prevention and school safety.