Project Impact helps with school safety

A bomb threat hits a Carson City school.

Or a chemical spill, plane crash, death of staff member or student, fire or explosion. Maybe guns are seen on campus, a hostage is taken, or there is a kidnapping or sexual battery.

What happens next?

Come January, parents and school employees and anybody else who has the Carson City School District's Emergency Management Plan booklet will know precisely what procedure school officials will follow.

The planning won't stop there. They also give parents instructions on what to do in an effort to avoid chaos.

"It is one of the most critical aspects of safety planning for parents to know how a school is going to react and what is expected of parents," said Mike Mitchell, the school district's operations director. "We want every person to know how schools handle the safety of kids and this is a first step.

"The reason we want to get this in the hands of parents is that sometimes parents find out about a problem before the people at the school because of cell phones."

The simple message to parents if a calamity should strike a school: do not call the school, do not go to the school, go to a predetermined place detailed in the booklets, also known as templates.

As a preview, school officials on Wednesday will share the school district's game plan with emergency services officials, businesses, parents and local government officials in a Safe Schools Celebration at 10:30 a.m. at Fritsch Elementary School. State Sen. Mark Amodei, once a student at Carson High and the then-separate Bordewich and Bray schools, will be keynote speaker.

"When we were smaller there were not as many school sites or kids to deal with," Amodei said. "Now we're bigger and you have to deal with those scales in different ways. This is now part of the planning and operations process of running a school."

The school district tapped into school safety two years ago when several administrators attended a national safer schools conference in Orlando, Fla. The school district in Seminole County, Fla., shared its emergency management plan with any schools that wanted it and Carson City used it as the foundation for its template.

"They've been in the forefront with emergency management," Mitchell said.

The Columbine shooting followed the next year and further raised the realization that extreme school violence can happen anywhere.

"Those indiscriminate shootings were so high profile that we got pressure from parents about 'what are you going to do about it?'" Mitchell said.

Earlier this year, the evolving emergency management planning at the schools merged with the city-wide Project Impact campaign to establish a more disaster resistant community.

Carson City this year became one of about 200 communities to join the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Project Impact program. The city received $300,000 that it split into four projects determined by the city's Emergency Management Advisory Committee.

The school district got $90,000 in Project Impact money. Mitchell allotted half to print the templates and the other $45,000 to create emergency crisis kits.

Developing the templates also cost about $45,000, which the school district paid for, Mitchell said.

Project Impact also provides $115,000 for storm drainage, $30,000 for public disaster education and $15,000 for a temporary animal shelter.

Project Impact was launched in 1997 by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to encourage public-private partnerships to assess potential disaster problems and find ways to prevent or limit damage before disasters occur.

Very few school emergency management plans have become part of Project Impact but it makes sense since schools directly touch at least half of the community, said Liz Watson, Carson City's Project Impact coordinator.

"It's really innovative," Watson said.

Mitchell added, "Most of the time you think of earthquakes, fires and floods. Most of the time you're not thinking of social disasters."

Watson said networking between the four Project Impact committees found a way for the school district to take emergency planning to the next step with some of the money saved with the Project Impact grant.

This involves software allowing the school district to consolidate all data about the schools. Where are the doors, windows, fire extinguishers, alarms and other details emergency crews would love to have at their fingertips?

"The sheriff's department and fire department will have access to that database," Mitchell said.

He said he wants to add that software into next year's budget.

This year, however, he focused on the templates. The various scenarios are singled out with quick reference tabs at the front.

"If we have a bomb threat, you can flip immediately to bomb threat and get general directions on what to do," Mitchell said.

But the templates don't mean it's doomsday at Carson City's school, Mitchell is quick to remind people.

"Schools are the safest place for kids, bar none," Mitchell said. "What this is for is piece of mind."

What: Safe Schools Celebration

When: 10:30 a.m. Wednesday

Where: Fritsch Elementary School, 504 Bath St.

Who: keynote speaker is state Sen. Mark Amodei; other speakers: Deputy Attorney General Dorothy Nash Holmes and Mayor Ray Masayko

Purpose: To unveil the school district's new emergency management plan template (booklet) that will be distributed to all parents and school employees in the coming months.