Campus Safety
Knowing how to respond quickly and efficiently in a crisis is critical to ensuring the safety of our schools and students. The midst of a crisis is not the time to start figuring out who ought to do what. At that moment, everyone involved- from top to bottom- should know the drill and know each other.
Margaret Spelling
Secretary of the US Department of Education
January 2007
A crisis is “an unstable or crucial time or state of affairs in which a decisive change is impending, especially one with the distinct possibility of a highly undesirable outcome”. Webster’s Ninth Collegiate Dictionary 1987
In essence, a crisis is a situation where schools could be faced with inadequate information, not enough time, and insufficient resources, but in which leaders must make one or many crucial decisions.
Student safety has always been a number one priority at The Wood Acres School. While we fervently hope to never utilize our preparedness plans, we are proud to have been one of the first private schools in the area to have a complete plan modeled after the recommended plans in Washington, DC and submitted to the local police precinct. The plan is amended and reviewed each year with faculty and staff. While the details of the plan are confidential, the following should underscore the details to which we “invisibly” protect your and our most treasured people.
The Wood Acres School Emergency Preparedness Plan attempt to address:
- Natural disasters (earthquake, tornado, hurricane, flood, etc)
- Severe weather
- Fire
- Chemical or hazardous material spill
- Field trip bus accident
- Shooting
- Bomb threat
- Unwanted persons on campus
- School lock downs
- Medical emergencies
- Act of terror or war
- Outbreak of disease or infection
Our four phases of crisis management are:
- Mitigation/Prevention- What our school can do to reduce or eliminate risk to life and property
- Preparedness- process of planning for the worst-case scenario
- Response- steps to take during a crisis
- Recovery- how to restore the learning and teaching environment after a crisis