What if… 

• A principal finds that more than half of her staff is out sick with the flu?
• A tornado hits during a track meet, leaving hundreds of students and parents scrambling for safety?
• A major ice storm strikes, roads are shut down, your school must shelter students for several hours until it is safe enough to travel?

1.  Commit to membership in the Red Cross Ready Rating™ Program.

• Principal, School Board President, or Superintendent signs Statement of Understanding.
• Ready Coordinator is appointed to serve as liaison with the American Red Cross.
• Complete online assessment. Provide score to American Red Cross.

2.  Conduct an initial analysis of disaster vulnerability.

• Planning for a range of events and hazards caused by both people and nature.
• Assessing your school’s physical vulnerabilities and capacity to resist damage.
• Assessing the capacity of staff, students, and their families to prepare for and respond to a disaster at school and at home.
• Identifying external emergency response resources in your community who will provide assistance or who may request to use your school facility during and after a disaster.

Plan for a range of events and hazards caused by both people and nature

• Natural disasters (such as hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, or tornadoes)
• Fires
• Severe weather
• Chemical or hazardous material spills
• Bus accidents
• Bomb threats
• Medical emergencies
• Acts of terror or war
• Outbreaks of disease or infection
• Student or staff deaths (suicide, homicide, unintentional, natural)
• Intruder in the building

• Flood plains, seismic faults, or dams
• Companies that produce, store, use, or transport hazardous materials
• Nuclear power plants
• Major transportation routes and airports
• Proximity to other large facilities
• Proximity to potential targets of terrorism

Assess your school’s physical vulnerabilities and capacity to resist damage

• The school’s physical construction and location
• The security of your building (ease of access and entry into the building)
• Driveways, parking lots, playgrounds, outdoor structures, and fencing
• Facilities for storing combustibles or chemicals (science lab or janitorial closets)
• Layout of equipment
• Lighting
• Evacuation routes and exits
• Designated posts during emergencies and staging areas
• Barrier issues such as multiple floors or building locations

Assess the capacity of staff and students and their families to prepare for and respond to a disaster at school and at home

• Do you know which staff members have received training in basic first aid and CPR techniques in the past 12–24 months to handle emergencies? Include the list of school employees with special training and certification in an emergency information folder.
  • Hosting first aid, CPR and disaster preparedness classes in your school is one of the best ways to increase your community’s ability to respond to emergencies. Consider partnering with parent and community groups to host training courses at your school. Your local Red Cross chapter offers training on basic first aid, CPR, and disaster preparedness and can give you information about hosting programs at your school.
• Do you have emergency supplies in classrooms? Does your school have an automated external defibrillator (AED) onsite?
  • Keeping emergency supplies easily accessible in central locations and each classroom, including first-aid kits and AED's, can greatly improve the time each staff member takes to respond during an emergency, even saving lives. Your local Red Cross chapter has information on what to include in classroom emergency supplies kits, storage tips, and information about obtaining AEDs for your school.
• Do you offer fire safety education for students in collaboration with the local fire department and the Red Cross?
  • Someone dies from a fire in their home about every 2½ hours in the United States. Offering fire safety education in your school not only helps students prepare for fire safety at school during drills, it can also help them at home and for a lifetime. Considering contacting your local fire department and Red Cross chapter to find out how you can promote fire safety in your school and help families learn to prevent and prepare for fires at home.
• Do you offer regularly scheduled training sessions to help staff develop and practice preparedness skills?
  • Examples of disaster preparedness topics are: how to manage students in a crisis; emergency preparedness kits for use in classrooms and at home; and mapping out evacuation routes and procedures from various locations on campus. See or contact your local Red Cross for printed materials or presentations.
• Is preparedness information available at an age-appropriate level for all students?
  • You can find information on helping children prepare for emergencies through the Red Cross.
• Do students know the plans well enough to follow the procedures if a teacher is injured or a substitute teacher does not know the procedures?Do you share your emergency plan with substitute teachers?
  • When students know the emergency procedures, they can get to safety if there is a teacher who is injured or a substitute teacher unfamiliar with the procedures and alert other staff if they need help. Substitute teachers and other visitors to your campus also need to know what to do during drills and in the event of an emergency.
• Do your plans take into account the diverse needs of your school community?
  • People with physical, sensory, motor, developmental, emotional, or mental disabilities may have particular challenges. For example, a student with severe asthma or breathing problems may have difficulty descending stairs during an evacuation. Students with limited English proficiency may not be able to understand announcements or directions. You can find more information about planning for the unique needs of students and staff with disabilities in a booklet entitled Practical Information on Crisis Planning: A Guide for Schools and Communities.
• Do you schedule a review after each drill or practice?
  • Make sure to include emergency response organizations in the evaluation of practice drills. The evaluations should be used to pinpoint areas for improvement and identify future training topics.
• Do you have a plan for communicating with staff, students, families, and the media? Is your plan shared with parents before they need it?
  • Be proactive. At an orientation at the beginning of the school year, consider talking with parents about the school’s emergency response plan and how the school will contact parents or give parents information on how and where students will be released following a disaster. You will want to get the message out using all available tools. Consider setting up a telephone call tree, a page on the school or school district’s Web site, e-mail alert, or call-in voice recording.
• Does your school include student and staff emergency contact information with other important documents in an emergency folder and at an offsite location?
  • Your school’s emergency folder should include critical information, such as a roster of staff and students, a list of students and staff with disabilities and the accommodations that might be necessary, emergency contact information for parents and guardians of students and for staff, names of key responders, and an emergency resource list. For a checklist of critical information, click here. Resources for educators to use in helping students get prepared at school and at home are available at www.redcross.org/disaster/masters.
• Have you provided information to staff and students that explains the need for developing their own family communications plan? Do they know about emergency procedures and disaster plans for your community?
  • Having a family communications plan will help members of your school community make effective decisions about what to do and how to communicate during a disaster. Information on how to buy or put together a family communications plan can be found on www.redcross.org

Identify external emergency response resources that will provide assistance during and after a disaster

• Local and state police and fire departments, hospitals and emergency medical services organizations
• The mayor, community emergency management office, or planning commission
• Local American Red Cross chapter
• National Weather Service
• Telephone, water, gas, and electric companies
• Neighboring businesses
• Insurance carriers

3.  Develop an emergency response plan.

• Find out what state, district, school, or community plans may already be in place
• Form a team to help develop and implement each phase of the plan
• Mitigate and prevent hazards by identifying what you can do to reduce or eliminate the risk to life and property
• Encourage preparedness among staff and students and their families at school and at home
• Prepare for emergencies ahead of time by gathering records, documents, and supplies that may be needed in an emergency
• Establish emergency response procedures
• Develop a recovery plan for restoring the learning and teaching environment following an emergency
• Establish a time to review your plan at least once a year to update information on supplies, emergency contacts, staff members, and other information that may have become outdated

Find out what state, district, school, or community plans may already be in place

• Tailor plans to meet your school’s needs. Gather and review existing district, school, or community plans and consider modifying them to meet the individual needs of your school.
• Think of the finished plan as more than a single document. It is more effective to create several documents targeted to the different audiences you need to reach. For example, you may want to provide a detailed document for the planning team, checklists for teachers, staff and student rosters for administrators, age-appropriate single-sheet handouts for students, directions for parents on accessing information from the school during an emergency event, and wallet cards containing evacuation routes for bus drivers.

Form a team to help develop and implement each phase of the plan

• Consider a broad cross section of in-school staff and volunteers, but focus on those with expertise vital to daily functions. These will likely include administrators, facilities management staff, teachers, and others with special training in areas such as first aid, CPR, or emergency preparedness.
• Make sure your team includes people with known disabilities, others who may need extra assistance during an emergency (such as a staff person with chronic or temporary medical conditions who may not consider themselves as having a disability) or those who have expertise in working with people with disabilities and chronic medical conditions.
• Collaborate with outside organizations to develop the plan. Local offices of emergency management, public health, law enforcement, and fire departments bring expertise and are useful resources when developing your plan. Emergency response personnel and the Red Cross can provide assistance during an emergency and describe the resources they have available in those situations.

Mitigate and prevent hazards by identifying what you can do to reduce or eliminate the risk to life and property

• Review the last safety audit for current evaluations of school buildings and grounds to identify ways to reduce property loss and increase safety in the event of an emergency.
• Determine who is responsible for overseeing violence prevention strategies in your school. Identify any major problems with crime or violence facing your school community.
• Contact your local, regional, or state emergency management office, local law enforcement, and insurance advisor for more information about reducing the risk of hazards and crisis mitigation and prevention in schools.

Encourage preparedness among staff, students, and their families at school and at home

• Encourage awareness of emergency preparedness by providing information on how to build a disaster supplies kit for home, work, and vehicles; create a family communications plan and be informed about potential disasters that may occur in the region.
• Offer first aid and CPR training to staff. Consider partnering with your school’s parent – teacher organization to host training for parents, older students, and other community members.
• Identify and purchase safety equipment, first aid kits, AEDs, and shelter-in-place supplies as appropriate for your facility.

Tips for increasing awareness

• Consider displaying posters, distributing print or online brochures or holding school assemblies or evening programs that provide information about preparedness plans for families and communities. You can also direct staff, parents, and older students to the Red Cross Web site at www.redcross.org where they can find easy-to-follow, practical tips that anyone can do to prepare for emergencies at home, at school, and at work. Include information to all members of your school community about Be Red Cross Ready and its easy-to-remember three-step approach to personal preparedness — Get a Kit, Make a Plan, and Be Informed.
• Consider including preparedness and emergency response procedures in back-to-school information packets you distribute each year with reminders to parents to update the emergency contact information they have on file with the school.
• Schedule table-top exercises, practices, and drills that help faculty, staff, and students learn what to do and where to go during various types of emergencies.
• Post signs with emergency information, such as the location of areas to take shelter and evacuation routes.

Prepare for emergencies ahead of time by gathering records, documents, and supplies that may be needed in an emergency

• Essential documents, such as contact information for emergency and law enforcement organizations, student attendance and teacher/employee rosters, student disposition forms and emergency contact information cards, and a list of students and staff with disabilities or specific medical and health needs. Ensure that you have backups for any electronic school documents and databases
• Several sets of master keys (you will need extra sets to distribute to emergency response personnel)
• Emergency communication devices, cellular phones, battery-operated radios
• Whistles and hats (for identification)

• Clipboard with current class roster and list of students with disabilities or who may require assistance or medication
• Copy of emergency procedures
• Flashlights with extra batteries (in case of power outage)
• First aid supplies
• Activities for students
• Paper and pens
• Whistle and hat (for identification)

• Water and nonperishable foods, to include foods that are appropriate for specific health and cultural needs (for information on how and where to store emergency supplies and how much to stockpile, visit the American Red Cross)
• Flashlights with extra batteries
• Battery-operated NOAA Weather radio (for information on NOAA’s Public Alert Radios for Public Schools distribution program, visit http://public-alert-radio.nws.noaa.gov/proginfo.htm)
• Blankets
• Buckets
• Sanitary supplies, such as moist towelettes and toilet paper
• First-aid supplies
• Breathing masks
• Work gloves and latex gloves
• Plastic sheeting and duct tape
• Can openers, multipurpose tools, wrenches, and scissors or knives
• Whistles and reflective vests to identify trained staff or safety workers
• Paper and pens

• Emergency call lists and first responder information
• Student attendance and teacher/employee rosters
• Student disposition forms and emergency contact information cards
• List of students and staff with medical and dietary needs (may include information about prescription medicines and should be marked “confidential”)
• Aerial photographs and maps of campus and surrounding areas
• Evacuation sites and designated post and staging areas
• Location of gas lines and utilities
• Building plans and site maps
• Resource lists, including contact information for government agencies and the local Red Cross chapter
• Bus routes and lists of students transported by bus according to the route

Establish emergency response procedures

• Develop detailed plans for evacuation, reverse evacuation, lockdown and “Drop, Cover and Hold On".  In an evacuation, all staff and students must leave the building. Participants walk designated routes to a specified area, where their names are checked against a roster. If an incident occurs outside, you may need to return students and staff to the building. This is a reverse evacuation.
• Describe procedures for communicating with staff, students, families, external emergency response personnel, and media
• Ask members of the school community who have disabilities or medical conditions what help they will need during different types of emergencies
• Designate areas for family reunification and develop processes for accounting for students and releasing them to their families
• Plan and make provisions for school personnel and students to shelter in place
• Ensure ready access to emergency supplies (for example, potable water, food, first-aid kits, flashlights, radio, batteries)
• Build in the need for regularly scheduled practice and ongoing training

Communication procedures

• Develop a warning system that will notify staff and students that an event is occurring and instruct them on what to do. Make sure that clear instructions using common language are provided for staff and students to help them know how to respond appropriately to each type of warning
• Meet with law enforcement, emergency medical services, fire fighting officers, and other external organizations to discuss the best ways to communicate during different events or crises
• Decide who will communicate with the media. Consider having all communications funnel through one spokesperson who has received training in media relations or risk communication
• Identify several ways to communicate with both internal and external audiences. Keep in mind that in times of crisis, intercoms, computers, telephones, and even cell phones may not function or may be dangerous to use
• Keep several communication devices on hand for different personnel. For example, the school principal or crisis team leader may want to have a backup cell phone and walkie-talkie stored in the “emergency response box” or a backpack to grab on the way out of the building

Emergency plans for people with disabilities

Evacuation planning

During some emergencies, it may be necessary to evacuate the school. To develop an evacuation plan:

• Determine the conditions under which an evacuation would be necessary.
• Establish a clear chain of command. Identify personnel with the authority to order an evacuation. Designate “evacuation wardens” to assist others in an evacuation and account for all personnel. Create training programs for wardens and other personnel involved in evacuation procedures.
• Establish procedures for assisting persons with disabilities or medical conditions. For example, a blind employee may need a partner in case an evacuation is necessary.
• Post evacuation procedures and make sure exits and evacuation routes are clearly marked
• Coordinate plans with local emergency management authorities and external resources, such as police and fire departments

What shelter in place means

• If there are visitors in the building, provide for their safety by offering to let them stay — not leave — while also ensuring the safety of your students.
• Gather essential disaster supplies, such as nonperishable food, bottled water, battery-operated radios, first-aid supplies, flashlights, batteries, duct tape, plastic sheeting, and plastic garbage bags.
• Select interior room(s) on the safest level depending on the disaster. For chemical emergencies, this is above the ground floor. For tornadoes and radiation emergencies, this would be on the lowest level and below ground if possible. Choose rooms with the fewest windows or vents that will still provide an adequate air supply for the maximum number of people that will occupy the room. The room(s) should have adequate space for everyone to be able to sit in. Avoid overcrowding by selecting several rooms if necessary. Large storage closets, utility rooms, pantries, copy and conference rooms without exterior windows will work well. Avoid selecting rooms with large-spanned roofs that can easily collapse during a tornado and rooms with mechanical equipment like ventilation blowers or pipes that may not be able to be sealed from the outdoors. Consult with a safety professional for advice on the unique characteristics and needs pertaining to your building for disaster-related situations.
• It is ideal to have a hard-wired telephone in the room(s) you select. Call emergency contacts and have the phone available if you need to report a life-threatening condition. Cellular telephone equipment may be overwhelmed or damaged during an emergency.
• If you need to seal the room you are in because of a chemical or radiation emergency, use duct tape and plastic sheeting (heavier than food wrap) to seal all cracks around the door(s) and any vents into the room.
• Bring everyone into the room(s). Close the doors, windows, and other exterior openings securely.
• Write down the names of everyone in the room, and call your designated emergency contact to report who is in the room.
• Keep listening to the radio or television until you are told all is safe or you are told to evacuate. Local officials may call for evacuation in specific areas at greatest risk in your community.

Practice and training

Develop a recovery plan for restoring the learning and teaching environment following an emergency

• Be sure to consider how you will be able to resume classes if part or all of the school building is damaged.
• Include processes for working with building maintenance engineers and emergency management following a crisis event to assess the safety of all campus buildings and outdoor structures.
• Determine the role of staff and other professionals who will assist in recovery for different types of crisis events. Will counselors be available to help train school personnel to assess when students and colleagues may need intervention?
• After a disaster or other crisis, you may be contacted by volunteers offering to help with recovery. Consider interviewing candidates and researching their credentials to create a list of certified volunteer service providers.
• Create a plan for keeping parents, community members, and the media informed about the recovery effort.
• As part of the recovery process, plan for engaging your school community in evaluating the emergency response and improving your plan for potential future emergencies.

Establish a time to review your plan at least once a year to update information on supplies, emergency contacts, staff members and other information that may have become outdated

• Get updates on state, district, school, or community plan changes that may affect your plan.
• Incorporate any lessons learned from using your plan as soon as you can following an emergency.
• Engage your emergency planning team to review and update parts of the plan and any documents they were responsible for developing.
• Review and update all essential documents, especially contact information for emergency and law enforcement organizations, staff rosters, student emergency contact information cards, and any specific medical and health needs.
• Replace any outdated information in emergency response boxes with revised information.
• Redistribute any updated documents to staff, students, and their families at the beginning of each school year and as needed throughout the year.
• Check disaster and emergency supplies. Replace inventory that is expired or has been used while also gauging sufficient quantities for the number of people in the school since it may change from year to year.

4.  Implement your emergency response plan.

5.  Do your part annually to ensure that the overall community is ready.

Host blood drives

Appoint and train employees as national disaster volunteers who are given company time to serve on disaster assignments as needed

Appoint and train community disaster education presenters who represent the company and Red Cross in community preparedness presentations

Commit your facility as a Red Cross shelter location to be activated as needed in the event of an emergency

Lead an educational campaign to encourage others to Be Red Cross Ready

September is National Preparedness Month. Work with your local chapter to support their campaign by hosting a community event or volunteering for outreach activities using “Be Red Cross Ready” materials.

• Link to the Be Red Cross Ready Web site from your corporate site to help others learn about preparedness and basic lifesaving information and training: www.redcross.org/beredcrossready.
• Include an article or series of articles on preparedness in your school newsletter about the three simple steps to Be Red Cross Ready.
• Offer a Be Red Cross Ready community presentation to employees and their family members or even people in the neighborhood where your school is located.
• Insert a Be Red Cross Ready brochure in employee paychecks.

Provide scholarships for Red Cross health and safety training and products

Sometimes community members are required to get health and safety training certification to be eligible for employment, but they may not have the funds to pay for it. Children from families with low incomes may not be able to participate in aquatics courses, so they may have an increased risk being unsafe in and around water. Red Cross chapters may be able to reduce the cost of a training course or provide scholarships. Your school can work with your local Red Cross chapter to provide scholarships based on the needs of people in your community.

Invest in Red Cross emergency services and health and safety programs

Ensure that Red Cross can help Americans prepare for disasters and other emergencies and is always ready to respond quickly and effectively following a natural, human-caused, or public health disaster.