When Julia Burrows heard that 8-year-old Kaelyn McGill had died in a car accident Sunday afternoon, she knew exactly what to do. The Alma Schrader Elementary School counselor called on other counselors from neighboring Blanchard and Clippard schools to help her talk to the students about the tragedy Monday morning.
"When Julia called me Sunday night and told me what happened she asked if I would come over to her school Monday morning and I said yes," said Angela Metje, Blanchard counselor. "We've talked amongst the counselors, and it's understood: You go over when you're needed."
Each of the nine schools in the Cape Girardeau School District currently has its own emergency response plan, but district officials hope to have a single, district-wide plan covering everything from natural disasters to violence on campus and student deaths off campus operating by fall.
Mark Ruark, the district's safety coordinator and assistant high school principal, said each of the individual plans are fine, but having a unified plan would be better because school officials would know that every school reacts the same way.
"Right now each building responds to crisis differently," Ruark said. "We want to bring them all together so if we have a tragedy at the high school, everybody knows exactly what everyone else is doing."
Prompted by Paducah
A shooting at a Paducah, Ky., school in 1997 prompted the Cape Girardeau School District to look at its own emergency procedures. Ruark started drafting the district-wide plan three years ago.
"It's been a work in progress," he said. "When the shooting at Heath High School happened we took a long look at how we would respond to a similar situation. We didn't want to develop a haphazard plan just to seem reactive."
The district emergency manual includes procedures for natural and medical emergencies, school directories, contact numbers and a crisis communication flow chart.
Teachers, staff and students are currently trained and tested regularly to react in emergency situations involving fires, tornadoes, earthquakes and campus intruders.
An earthquake drill took place Friday at Central Junior High School.
At 1:20 p.m., principal Gerald Richards' voice came over the school's public address system. "For the next 45 seconds we are going to have a drop-and-cover drill," he said.
As soon as the students heard the announcement, they stopped what they were working on, got out of their chairs and crawled beneath their desks. Some sat with their knees pulled into their chests and others curled into a ball.
After about 45 seconds Richards voice was heard again telling the students to return to their seats.
"The drills are important to make sure our faculty and students are prepared in case of an actual emergency," Richards said. "They help to ensure everyone will respond in an orderly way without panic."
Ruark said the new plan covers nearly all emergency situations, but not all would be practiced with drills.
Each school currently has a form of intruder drill. At the junior high, Richards calls a code out over the public address system which notifies teachers an intruder has been found in the school. The teachers then lock their doors from the inside of the classroom and wait for further instruction from Richards.
Ruark said a mock school shooting drill would not be practiced beyond what is already done at the junior high school because if people were planning to carry out an attack, they would see how the school would react and be able to modify their plan.
Shooting practice
Even though a school shooting is not simulated with safety drills, Ruark said teachers and administrators know the procedure to follow if such a situation would occur. "We do a lot of tabletop exercises," he said. "We say 'Here's a situation, how can we deal with it?'"
Ruark said the benefits from the unified district plan are not limited to the people in the buildings.
"Knowing that each building follows the same plans would be a comfort to parents," Ruark said. "When their students move from the elementary schools to the fifth- and sixth-grade center and on after that they will know the same procedures are being followed."
He said the police department and bus company would also benefit by knowing each school is reacting in the same way.
The finished plan will be presented to the school board at its Feb. 25 meeting. The board will review the plan and either accept it at that time or vote on it at a later meeting.
hkronmueller@semissourian.com
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