Craig Verley

As we barrel towards the end of another school year, my mind always tends to wander into the areas of emergency responses. I guess this is due to two primary reasons: Hurricane season is right around the corner (June1), and there always seems to be an increase in situations of things like online threats, or old school bomb threats and fire alarm pulls, etc. In other areas of the state, springtime also brings other severe weather situations as we get the clash of seasons changing. Yes, I know. Emergencies can and do happen throughout the year.

That being said. Are you ready for “that” phone call? At the very least each school district is required to have a comprehensive multi-hazard emergency operations and response plan. Hopefully, you and/or your communications team were involved in putting together that plan. You will definitely be a part of any response, and there are specific sections relating to communications that if you were not a part of the planning for, then you should at least be familiar with what your responsibilities would be should some sort of emergency response be initiated. So, take a moment to schedule a date/time on your calendar to review your plan and make appropriate updates.

You may think that since you were a part of putting together your district’s emergency operations and response plan you have what you need. But have you done any training? Just because you have lived through some emergency responses or put together the plan you really know what you should. But do you really?

The Texas State Texas School Safety Center has become the go-to place for all things school safety. Their comprehensive resources include areas for different types of online training, plus an emergency communications toolkit that also provides some training.

Emergency Communications Toolkit Toolkit | Texas School Safety Center (txstate.edu)

If you are not familiar with the whole concept of an incident command structure as it relates to emergency responses, I would strongly recommend arming yourself with that knowledge as it is what federal responses and most state/regional/local responses are based on. Some of the jargon involved can be confusing. Some of it may even sound redundant. However, the slightest difference in a title makes a big difference in the duties and responsibilities involved in the response structures. I never realized that until I took the online Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) training that is available for free. The National Incident Management System (NIMS) related training is a part of FEMA’s Emergency Management Institute. Emergency Management Institute – National Incident Management System (NIMS) (fema.gov)

I would recommend you schedule some time to take at least two of the courses. Each will likely take you at least 2-3 hours to complete. There is a test at the end of each course. Upon completion, you get a certificate of completion.

• ICS-100: Introduction to the Incident Command System
• IS-700: National Incident Management System, An Introduction

When you are looking around the NIMS page of trainings, you may see some other courses you may want to tackle at a later date. One of those is the All-Hazards Position Specific Communications Unit Leader.

Okay. So perhaps you have been around the block a time or two. Perhaps it is time to revisit and retake one of these courses. The time invested in that memory refresh is worth it.