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Capitol Hill Elementary practices school-wide response to emergencies
11/16/2017In case of a fire, students know to evacuate the building at their teacher’s direction. In case of an earthquake, students know to brace themselves under their desks and protect their heads and necks. But what happens after those events? What happens if a school crumbles or burns, leaving students and staff without a way to contact parents and families?
Last week, Capitol Hill Elementary School attempted to answer those exact questions.
Principal Joy Williams decided to practice the school’s procedure for “reunifying” students with their families after an emergency. An emergency is anything that removes students from their normal schedule or school activities, such as a fire, snowstorm, earthquake or active shooter. For the drill, and to keep the students as calm as possible, Williams chose to tell the students that they were practicing reunification after an earthquake.
“We learned a lot about our schoolwide emergency response just from developing our reunification plan,” Williams said. “In order to make sure that this drill would run as smoothly as possible, we had to look for potential hazards throughout our building and imagine all the ways a reunification could go wrong. Just doing that exercise strengthened our ability to effectively serve our students in an emergency.”
On Nov. 14, families that chose to participate in the exercise lined up outside the entrance to the gym, waiting for 1 p.m., when the drill would begin. There were so many families, the line stretched around the block to the front of the building.
Parents, guardians and family friends had filled out a form with the names of the students they were picking up, and filed into the gym to check in with reunification staff. Staff in the gym radioed to teachers in classrooms and volunteers stationed in the hallways to gather groups of kids, either siblings or friends who were reunifying together, and brought them to the gym. The folks picking up kids turned in the form they had filled out, signing off that they left with the kids they were meant to leave with.
“All in all, the drill went incredibly well,” Williams said. “We were able to get all of the kids reunified in about 45 minutes, and only one student left crying—he was upset he would have to miss math class today.”
Williams believes reunification drills should be practiced throughout the district and is willing to serve as a resource for other principals.
“It’s my understanding that we are only the third school to practice reunification,” she said. “I would highly recommend that all schools in the district at least go through a planning process for reunification. That alone will leave schools better prepared for serving their communities in an emergency.”
-Laura Hanson
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