CRISIS MANAGEMENT CONSULTANTS

A lock down drill is a common term. There are probably not too many schools, or school administrators, who do not use and train a lock down procedure. The term even lends itself to a simple procedure. “There’s a problem on the campus, lock your door”; sounds simple.

While conducting vulnerability assessments for schools, I always ask if the school can stage a drill for me so I can observe their procedures. This reveals a great deal about the level of readiness of a school and its staff. It will also reveal the level of complacency and lack of planning by a school.

While observing one of these drills for a local school, I heard them boast they could lock their campus down in a matter of minutes. I was ready to be impressed but soon found, I would be disappointed. They did close and lock their doors in a matter of minutes but what they learned after a critique is there is so much more to a lock down than just doors and lights. So on that thought, let’s look at the lock down process and see where we can do this better.

There are several purposes for a lock down. There is an unwelcomed person or persons on the campus. Maybe the local law enforcement agency has notified you of a fugitive on the loose in your area. A menacing animal has been seen on the campus. You have just seen news about a violent incident occurring near your campus. On a larger scale, you have just received word of violent incidents occurring at other locations similar to yours indicating these may not be isolated events but instead, a chain of events (see September 11). In summary, there is some sort of event occurring, or threatening to occur that you believe you can mitigate by limiting access to your students and staff.

The standard procedure is lock your doors, turn off the lights, and wait quietly for the “all clear”. Do not answer the door for anyone whose voice you do not know and do your best to keep the children in your care calm. I’ve seen some plans that even require putting two doors between you and the problem but this is not always possible.

What I offer you is there is still more work to do. The most important of this is accountability.

As the incident commander (headmaster, principal) you are responsible for every soul on your campus. This means the students, the teachers, the staff, the volunteers, and the visitors. When you start locking doors, you are locking out the bad things but you may also be locking out the people your accountable for as well.

The first way to address this is through training. Remember, training is not drill and drill is not training. If you have a lock down procedure it is imperative that everyone has been trained on the procedure. This includes your substitute teachers, parent volunteers, maintenance crew, and so on. For the parent guest on your campus, the training may be as simple as a brief on the procedure when they sign in.

Once the training has occurred, then you may drill. The drill is where you assess performance and make adjustments for weaknesses.

This brings us to the second step; the head count. The head count is going to take some time. This is why I argue that a true lock down simply can’t be done in a matter of minutes. This is because a true lock down is not complete until you have accounted for everyone. This sounds like a daunting task but remember, you accomplish this same task when you conduct your fire drills.

The first way we accomplish this is by having an accurate role. This isn’t just the morning role but includes the student who has signed out early for a doctor’s appointment or left campus for lunch. Remember, at least one of your students is going to be in the restroom when a real lock down occurs. How are you going to know this and how will you get to them?

The second way we have accountability is a sign in procedure. Every visitor on your campus should sign in and receive a visitor’s badge and sign out when they leave. This isn’t always easy to enforce but must be done. I will suggest that even the soda delivery vendor who is a guest must go through this process.

The book or computer program you use to accomplish this must also be capable of being carried in the event an evacuation is needed.

Next you are going to need to have communication. I recommend at least two forms of communication since things break and batteries die. Communication doesn’t mean a multi-thousand dollar 800mhz radio system. It may be as simple as some inexpensive portable radios and some red, yellow, and green cards.

The radios are self-explanatory. The cards can be displayed as green - all accounted for, yellow – extra student(s), and red – missing student(s). During a lock down, these can be displayed in the window of the room. During a fire drill, they can be simply held up by each teacher allowing for quicker counting while at your staging location.

Each of these events should be handled as if they were a crisis. If it is a crisis, you will be doing crisis management and since you are doing crisis management, you will have a command post. The command post will be responsible for using your role and rosters to systematically check that each grade, group, teacher, and individual is accounted for. You may not be able to locate everybody but you will be able to identify who is missing. These are the names you will be giving to the first responders (police and fire personnel) who are coming to help.

Finally, we need to talk about the “all clear”. Again, it is not as simple as it sounds. It’s easy to do this during a drill because you just use the PA to tell everyone. Consider during a real event the power may be out. If you send first responders to each door, remember you have trained your teachers not to open the door for anyone whose voice they don’t know. Or more complicated yet, you have learned the problem has been isolated. A portion of your campus may be evacuated but some areas need to remain in lock down (called a partial lock down or partial evacuation).

There are a few simple remedies you can consider for this. A portable PA or “bull horn” may be used to sound the all clear during a power failure. Duress words or passwords can be used by those going to individual rooms. The military has used these for decades. Daily, weekly, or monthly passwords are issued along with a duress word. During communication, a challenge is given. If the password is the reply, all is ok. If the duress word is used, something is awry. There are many other uses for this system as well but a caution here, training is required.

For the partial evacuation, which may be occurring under conditions where silence is important (see Platt Canyon School Shooting), a laminated card specific to the school or with the ability to hold a picture ID may be slid under a door. This enables a rescuer to notify a room, verify identity, and evacuate a room without ever saying a word.

In closing consider this. If you have arrived at a point where a school lock down is necessary, you are in a critical, high risk event. If failure occurs during high risk events, people get hurt or worse. Also know this; people do not make sound decisions while under stress. People who perform well under stress have been trained to do so.

Crisis management is serious business. It’s not just having a book that you call a crisis plan. It’s not having a drill when it’s convenient. And it is not testing your self under perfect conditions and expecting to perform flawlessly under the worst conditions.

If you write your crisis plan like lives depend on it, take your training seriously, and do honest assessments afterwards you will have peace knowing you have done everything possible to ensure safety. Then you may return to the business of providing a caring, loving, and safe environment for learning.

William Byrd, The Troas Group Inc. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it