This article was written by Molly Pepin, a student in Journalism class.
U-32 middle and high school follows a set of safety protocols. The Washington Central school district requires U-32 as well as the elementary schools to practice drills throughout the school year. Students are expected to take practice drills very seriously and behave as if the drill was a real emergency. By law, the school district practices a number of drills, which gives students a chance to practice immediate responses to an emergency.
According to Becca Tatistcheff, the principal at U-32, the school has certain safety protocols that are activated depending on the nature of the threat. When the school engages in drills, such as the evacuation drill, teachers follow safety protocols. In certain situations, such as a fire in the building, the best safety protocol would be to relocate students to a different area. “And then when the threat’s outside the building, we engage in what’s called a shelter in place, but nobody comes in or goes out, because we’re considered the safe space,” said Becca.
School drills are mandated a certain number of times each year. Typically these drills alternate between evacuation drills and option based drills. Option-based drills are different actions teachers may take in an emergency. U-32 continuously practices containment drills, also known as “lockdowns.” JB Hilferty, an assistant principal at U-32 said that the school district is working on a new drill called RUN HIDE FIGHT. “It’s an option based plan, depending on where you are when the situation happens, it might be most appropriate to run, might be appropriate to hide, and unfortunately, in some situations, it might be appropriate for you to potentially fight,” said JB. This could involve students blocking a door to prevent someone from entering a room. Fighting back could also involve hands on defense.
The school is in the process of establishing the RUN HIDE FIGHT drill, and what it will involve. JB says that the school is working on the fight piece of the drill, and will soon transition to the run piece.
This will involve teachers talking about relocation areas around the campus, and where it may be safest to go. In the case of an emergency where students need to run, they are brought to the civic center. “If there was a situation where we had to evacuate the building, [we] would eventually [get] back to the civic center so that we can then identify who we have, get you back with your parents, and make sure that everyone is accounted for,” said JB.
During the school year, the state of Vermont sets a standard for drills to be practiced. The beginning steps are when the district publishes a calendar. There is a foundation that schools around the states follow, while the school makes some decisions of their own. “They may say that you have to have an emergency drill in October, then we can decide, do we want to have a fire drill? Do we want to have a relocation drill? Do we want to have a lockdown drill? So there’s some flexibility within that,” said Amy Molina, an assistant principal at U-32.
When the school calendar is published, U-32 makes sure they practice one of each drill so every student knows what to do. Some of these drills are evacuation and lockdowns. If an incident happened at another school within close proximity to U-32, the school would take precautions. “Those precautions might look like staying inside, increasing situational awareness, or just being a little bit more aware of our surroundings,” said Becca. U-32 may also contact law enforcement to get more information. If something at a different school were to happen, Becca says one of the most important things for people to do is remain calm.
During normal school days, there have been times when alarms have malfunctioned. This can be stressful because administrators don’t know what’s happening. During the spring last school year, one of the alarms malfunctioned causing confusion among students and teachers. The most important thing teachers are expected to do is to assume it’s real until they know differently. After accidental alarms go off, the staff debriefs it. “We’ll just sit down and [talk about] what happened? What were we thinking about when it was going on? What could we have done better? And who needs to do something different?” said Amy.
The school district collaborates with local law enforcement, fire, and paramedics. During the summer, the law enforcement is invited to tour the school to familiarize themselves with the building. “We always talk to them before the school year begins, just to make sure everybody knows who’s doing what, who’s the principal, and who are the people that are going to be in charge,” said Steven, the superintendent. The law enforcement will be at the school sometimes during the year for a drill to see a visual of how they are in action. Drills are not only a district requirement, but also a state requirement. “So the legislature designated what we should do in schools to prepare, so we follow the law in that case,” said Steven.
In an emergency management plan, there is a structure to deal with an emergency. One title within the plan is called incident commander. That means that in an emergency there would be a person in charge. At U-32, this person is Amy Molina. In the case of an incident that were to happen in school, Amy communicates to the police to come to the school. While the police take the law enforcement role, Amy is the incident commander in the school.
There are many different roles that administrators take for safety during drills. During fire drills, JB Hilferty is in charge of the accountability for both staff and students. JB makes sure all students are accounted for in the case of a clear the halls drill. If there is a crisis happening in school, each administrator on the admin team has a different safety protocol role. “When somebody shows up on the admin team we will all assume a role within that, depending on whatever the situation is,” said JB. When the administration team has meetings, they review the logistics of the emergency plan, such as emergency phone numbers.
Amy considers her number one job to be keeping students safe. She comes to school everyday trying her best to prevent something dangerous from happening. This may be a problem that happens during everyday school. Amy says that this can happen especially in the middle school. “Sometimes I’m like, hey, let’s not climb on top of each other because I don’t want people to get hurt,” said Amy. JB and Amy both share the concept of safety and security.
Many administrators did training around safety protocols and how to supervise drills. At times, this comes from past teaching experiences at school. Before Amy began her current job at U-32 she was the athletic director. It was her job to ensure that sports games ran smoothly. “When you’re here in the evening, at a basketball game and something is wrong, you have to be the one who deals with it,” said Amy.
U-32 participates in an annual Vermont safety conference. During these meetings the school district talks about a school’s strengths and weaknesses in drills. After this, towards the beginning of the school year, teachers do refresher training. Administrators are in charge of teaching teachers what they need to do if there was a danger in school. “It’s not a ton of training, we don’t do hours and hours for the most part, but we do enough to make sure that everybody knows what to do,” said Steven. These trainings consist of power points and videos describing the correct course of action. According to Becca, teachers discuss how they will react if something dangerous were to happen. As a smaller team, they may play out that scenario.
The administration also sends out information to teachers about expectations during drills. Teachers are trained on what they’re expected to do in a real emergency.
Becca believes that building a calm environment will have an impact on students. As the new principal of U-32, her primary job is to set the tone to make students feel taken care of. “That means making sure that if something is an emergency, even though we’re dealing with it urgently, you also know that the adults are here to take care of you, and we know what to do,” said Becca.
From a student’s perspective of drills, they believe it is important to take them seriously. One Sophomore at U-32, Olivia Sumner, said in a real emergency students need to be serious. “You can’t be goofing off if it’s actually a real thing,” said Olivia. “You can’t be going over to a window and knocking on it, you should be quiet and serious, and if people start freaking out, that’s when we have problems,” she said. Olivia recognizes that students need to follow directions from teachers exactly and remain calm.
Following safety protocols and repeating drills during the school year is important for teachers and students to practice. In the case of an emergency, teachers and administrators are trained to know exactly what to do. As Becca has addressed, the most important thing for staff to do in an emergency is be calm. The U-32 staff wants to reassure students if they feel unsafe, and to build a community where everyone’s together.
