Class Acts
Safety’s no accident at Capistrano schools
Officials in Orange County’s Capistrano Unified School District have some especially compelling reasons to prepare their students, teachers and staff to deal with the unexpected.
The district’s 50,000 students attend school in a region that federal Homeland Security staff have designated a “high-threat, high-density urban area.” Blessed with all manner of natural wonders and cultural attractions, Orange County is also located near a nuclear power plant (San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station), the world’s most famous amusement park (Disneyland) and a 125,000-acre military base (Camp Pendleton).
Add the Golden State’s propensity for wildfires, floods and earthquakes to the mix, and you have a recipe for, well, disaster—or at least a pressing incentive to prepare for one.
“As educators, we must hope for the best but prepare for the worst,” says Mike Jindra, the district’s Safe Schools Program manager. “We have been vigilant about practicing for an emergency.”
As part of that district-wide vigilance, Capistrano has developed a nationally recognized and comprehensive safety program. Each of the district’s 56 school sites is equipped to serve as a mini-relief center that can “shelter-in-place” its students and staff for up to 72 hours if a truly catastrophic man-made or natural disaster should make immediate evacuation impossible.
That means that each campus is self-sufficient—stocked with enough food, water, blankets and other essentials (including, in some cases, personal keepsakes from home provided by parents) to keep students hydrated and fed until help arrives.
As part of its safety program, Jindra says, the district works very closely with radiological experts at the San Onofre generator. “We meet with them regularly to learn about the various levels of nuclear alerts that would be issued if there were ever to be an accident,” he says. “They teach us what to do if the sirens go off.”
As required by the state, each school has its own plan for dealing with emergencies. But Capistrano’s safety program goes well beyond the minimum. The district has developed a mobile command unit equipped with hard copies of school emergency data disks, school blueprints, student emergency contact information and a generator. The van also includes 24 mobile radios and other communications equipment so that the unit can access the district database and function as a dispatch center.
The district has also created a CD for each of its campuses that contains contact information, updated annually, for every student and site information for emergency responders. There are special plans tailored to the unique needs of special education students and those with disabilities, and for students and families who do not speak fluent English. All evacuation plans include buses with wheelchair access.
At the elementary and middle school level, students and staff run monthly drills, practicing lockdown procedures to secure campus buildings and staging regular evacuation drills. Capistrano works closely with law enforcement agencies and has appointed a district Emergency Response Task Force that meets regularly with representatives from local law enforcement, public health, fire and government agencies as well as parents and teachers.
The district regularly instructs teachers, staff and parents about how and under what circumstances families will be contacted in an emergency. It also maintains a safety hotline, extensive e-mail notification system and updated safety information that is linked to its Web site. The site (www.capousd.org/sch_safety.htm) also includes extensive information for parents with advice for preparing children for an emergency and details about school shelter and evacuation plans.
Representatives from the federal Department of Education were so impressed with the district’s safety program that they invited district staff to participate in a national task force to develop a safety curriculum. CSBA awarded Capistrano a Golden Bell Award for its safety program in 2006, and the district has also been honored by the American Red Cross.
Thankfully, the district has never had to deal with an all-out emergency. But several years ago, school was canceled at a number of campuses when the nearby San Juan River flooded after a heavy rain. The district dispatched the mobile unit to the scene, notifying affected parents not to bring their children to school that day. “It required a whole lot of preventive action to make sure kids knew not to come to school,” Jindra says. “It was quite an undertaking.”
The plan worked as intended. The district does its best to prepare students for emergencies without frightening them. “I don’t think all the practicing we do upsets the kids,” says Jindra. “If you practice often enough, your response becomes automatic. It’s when you don’t know how to respond that chaos sets in.”