Safety First

We want you to know that student safety is a top priority at Oasis Academy.  Every month we do practice drills.  We have had several fire drills.  We have also had an earthquake drill and today we had a shelter in place drill.  I would like to share you with our debriefing notes.  My hope in doing so is two fold.  First, I want you to recognize that we take safety seriously and want to be as prepared as possible. Second, if you are a parent who comes into the school to volunteer we want to use this an informal training.  As a parent, in the hallway, you would go into the closest classroom during a drill.  If you are working with students in another room, you would stay with those students wherever you are.

Shelter in Place Drill Debriefing

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The reason we do drills is so we can be better prepared in an actual emergency.  After our shelter in place drill we recognize the need for improvement in the following ways:

•  We need to get a snack bucket  with duct tape and water in the lunch room and special services room.
• We have to get locks on the lunchroom doors and blind on windows.
• We had some issues with the walkie talkies. Though we didn’t attempt to use them, please try and get them to channel 10 in an emergency.  If we have the ability to text we will but a natural disaster could take down cell service so the walkie talkies are a must.
• Mike, Julie and I need to get a text group set up in our cell phones just in case we can use them.
• Nice job on the 911 email.  If you would just tell us, Natalie Lane, I have 8^th grade right now and they are all accounted for.  It will just help if we don’t have to go look up what grades are where when.
• Ashley did pick up a student from the bathroom and accounted for him.  Good job.
• Students in the lunch room stayed with the adult in there. We need to add this to parent training.
• It was hard to hear the bull horn.  We will have a P.A. system before the end of this quarter.
• We need an up to date list of every student in the emergency response manual, by grade level so that we can check off all folks.
• The Bighorn Award of Excellence during an emergency goes to Mrs. Marsh. She also remembered to put her green paper under the door.  This is a really good idea, because again, a major natural disaster could interrupt Internet service, so attempt the Internet first. Then use your green card as back up.
• From now on you need to leave your doors locked (total pain I know).  Which means you probably don’t want them shut tight, prop them open a tiny bit so every time a parent or student needs to get in you aren’t interrupted with a knock. 
• In case of foreign odor, breathe through a damp paper towel.  Meaning you need an unopened roll of paper towel in your room and a squirt bottle that is ready to rock with water in it.  The sink water could be contaminated.  A lot of your kiddos have water they bring from home that could be used in a real emergency, but it’s much messier to pour water than squirt paper towels.
• We are in the process of getting you a copy of requirements for each emergency that you can have in your classrooms.

What makes this different from a code red?

•             Shelter in place is for a natural disaster or chemical spill of some sort; Code red is more like someone posing a threat on campus.
•          In a code red, you need to lay down on the floor, in a shelter in place you do not.   You can use your best judgment.
•       In a code red, an officer and myself (or Mike or Julie) will key every door. Do NOT open them for anyone, if they don’t have a key too bad; In shelter in place it will just be Mike, Julie, and/or I because in a natural disaster law enforcement may be tied up elsewhere.  If we have an intruder on campus every officer from here to kingdom come will be on site.