Action Steps
There are few things to be aware of when looking at mitigation and prevention programs at your school. Below are some suggestions.
Know the school building. Look at potential hazards on campus and conduct regular safety audits of the building. Be sure to include driveways, parking lots, playgrounds, outside structures, and even fencing.
Know the community. Mitigation requires assessment of local threats. Make sure you work with the local emergency management director to assess the surrounding hazards. This assessment includes the identification and assessment of the probability of natural disasters, such as hurricanes, tornados, or earthquakes, and industrial and/or chemical accidents. Make sure you know the location of major transportation routes and installations. For example, is the school near an airport?
Bring together regional, local, and school leaders. Since mitigation and prevention are community activities, leadership and support of these activities are necessary to make sure the right people are planning.
Make regular school safety and security efforts a normal part of mitigation and prevention practices. Look at the comprehensive school safety plan and its needs to identify what types of accidents are common in the school.
Establish clear lines of communication. Mitigation and prevention planning requires agencies and organizations to work closely together and share important information. In addition to communications within the planning team, outside communications with families and the larger community are important as well. This conveys a visible message that schools and local governments are working together to ensure public safety. Press releases from the governor and chief state school officer that discuss the importance of crisis planning can help open the channels of communication with the public.
Knowledge Check Choose the best answer for the question.
2-4. Which question would help the crisis team to better know their local community?
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