Student safety is never far from the thoughts of Dave Krumme, operations and data manager for the Emporia school district.
Krumme, who took over the position this year, began revising the district’s Crisis Management and Response manual in August.
The information is included in a flip chart supplied to staff at each school, with supplemental information included in the staff handbooks.
The flip charts include processes for handling exceptional situations that may occur within the school community — tornados, fires, utility outages, runaways or abductions, serious illnesses or injury at school, suicide intervention, child abuse and death of staff or student. Pandemic-health and child safety and bullying are in the process of being added to the manual. And, since the school shooting in Columbine, Colo., in 1999, the district has had a process for responses should an intruder enter a school.
“Prevention, preparation, responses and recovery. That’s the strategy,” Krumme said.
Recent fatal shootings at schools across the country again have raised awareness of reactions that would take place if an intruder entered a building in the Emporia district. Each school within the district has crisis-response teams to discuss how to handle potential crises and provide that information to the staff and others working within the building.
“I’m sure that everyone is thinking how to execute plans and what individual responses would be,” Krumme said. “...They have plans in place, they have prevention, they know how to respond; we have cooperation from local agencies.”
Students and staff participate in fire and weather drills that lay the foundation for youngsters to rely on their leaders to take them to safety. That reliance and training to obey leaders would carry through if an intruder situation occurred, he said.
The district has tried to prevent intruder entry by using security guards and video cameras at Emporia High School and Emporia Middle School, and by locking all doors except entry doors at every school within the district. Teachers taking classes outside carry keys to let them go back inside, and several teachers have walkie-talkies that allow communication with personnel inside.
Krumme said that all visitors are required to register at the school office before moving deeper into the buildings. Each approved visitor wears a badge that identifies him or her as having permission to be inside the school.
“If you don’t follow procedure, you become an intruder,” Krumme warned.
The district relies heavily on adults — teachers, paraprofessionals, parents, maintenance and transportation staffs — and students to watch for people at the schools who are not wearing appropriate identification or behaving suspiciously, and to report those intruders to authorities. The authority may be a building principal, designated staff member, or a 911 call to the police dispatch center, depending upon the circumstances.
“Adults have to be more sensitive to signs of potential problems,” Krumme said. “One thing our schools have is a lot of adults moving around the building. It’s so important that adults are sensitive to signs of trouble and report them quickly.”
Staff encourages children, as well as their parents, to report unusual incidents or oddities to any trusted adult.
“Kids do report,” he said, mentioning recent minor incidents that might have gone overlooked without students’ reporting to adults. “They let somebody know. I think that’s a credit to our schools. There’s that trust in adults to share with them any concerns.”
Students are told that if they overhear an unusual conversation or see a suspicious-looking list, they need to tell someone of their concern.
“I think when we see signs (of potential trouble), we have to report. You have to judge what you’ve seen and what you think, then call the police department or fire department,” Krumme said. “They respond, and they respond very quickly. You don’t want to take chances. You want to make sure everyone is safe.”
Interagency cooperation is being developed among the district, fire, police, and emergency management personnel, which will help the district identify potential safety issues and suggest remedies on a continuing basis. In return, the district will be able to provide transportation, bilingual services, and facilities if a city-wide emergency occurs.
“I just want our schools to be part of that,” Krumme said. “... It’s nice to know there’s that teamwork and that support out there.”