Safety Week!

The beginning of the school year is filled with developing routines. It may seem like a pretty simple thing, but teaching kindergarten kids how to 'line up' is quite humorous to watch! And going through the lunch line? Yikes! Yet, slowly but surely they get it figured out and before you know it, it becomes second nature. It's all about practicing and developing routines. 

Some of the routines that we practice at the beginning of the school year are focused on our emergency response systems. These include fire drills, tornado drills, and bus evacuation procedures. These drills are all about speed. How quickly can we evacuate the building in the event of a fire? How quickly can we get all the high school kids into the storm shelter or the elementary kids in the basement? It has become a bit of a competition between the attendance centers to see who can execute the evolution the quickest! Bus evacuations are not so much about speed, but rather a demonstration of where the safety exits are located, and practicing exiting out the back door of the school bus in a safe manner. Our practice is to conduct these drills twice each semester, in compliance with Iowa Code.

Ove the past two weeks, we have been preparing for 'safety week', which will be next week. This is when we'll take time to have age appropriate discussions and drills with our students on what our processes and procedures are in place in the event we have to execute a mass evacuation. We'll go over evacuation routes, different scenarios, and the ALICE procedures that have been in place at Hudson for a number of years. For our younger students, teachers will be guided by the book, I'm Not Scared...I'm Prepared. 

Now, most of you had the opportunity to see our plan in action in January when we had to evacuate the campus due to a natural gas leak adjacent to the high school. Because we had a plan in place with evacuation routes, primary relocation sites and secondary relocation sites, the whole evolution unfolded pretty well. For a refresher on what happened that day, please check out my blog article from January 15: When Theory Meets Practice. 

As Mr. Bell stated at a staff meeting last week, that evacuation went very well. But, he also cautioned us to remember that the circumstances at play that afternoon were about as perfect as one could anticipate. At the same time, the process that unfolded that day helped us recognize areas where we can improve our plan. Those improvements have been incorporated into our plan. 

I used to think that executing drills: be it tornado, fire, bus evacuation, or ALICE, were merely checking a box to ensure compliance. Once upon a time I believed that spending money on safety equipment, supplies for the buckets, and wayfinding signs for our reunification site was money better spent on instructional supplies. I thought we were spending a lot of time and effort during our administrative team meetings planning for the very unlikely event that something was going to happen. I no longer feel that way.

You can be assured that we take school safety and security incredibly seriously. Our drills are conducted in a manner to evaluate them for flaws, look for ways to improve the process, and test the systems. Next week is safety week, where students will discuss our ALICE procedures. If you have any questions or concerns about our safety plans or procedures, please don't hesitate to reach out.