Emergency Notifications

[KeeperOfTheIceRN, ADN]

Hey howdy hey all! Just trying to see what other campuses do in the event of an emergency.

Short story about today: we are a charter school through one of the local universities in town. There was an active shooter/shelter in place notification sent out due to an alarm activation on our university campus. OUR campus however, is not located on the same site as the main university, but we are within 1/4 mile from said location. Not to mention, we are part of the university system, therefore, we were put on lockdown today as well. Long story short, we have a few parents upset for more than one reason, but the main ones were:

1) they did not receive an alert message regarding the lockdown and the reason for it (all emergency notifications, even for our campus, are sent through the main university)

2) they feel we, the charter school, was failing in our duties because we would not answer the phone nor open the doors for parents who came while we were in lockdown

What I'm curious about is: does your district utilize a mass messaging system, such as Remind 101, in situations like this to keep parents updated during the emergency?

The alarm ended up being a false alarm and no emergency situation was found.

[Eleven011]

Yes, we have a message system called SchoolReach that sends a recorded message out to parents to whatever number the sign up with (I get one on my cell phone, home phone, email and hubbys cell phone). In the event of a lock down, parents are told to NOT come to the school. Students will be bused to a predetermined location when they are released and can be picked up there. I know it would suck to not know what is going on (I can't imagine even for myself being on campus, I couldn't be in 3 places at once to make sure all my own kids were ok). But its all for the safety of students and staff.

[Amethya]

I'm not sure what we have, but we have one too. If there's an emergency or something in that sense, we let the parents know afterwards with a mass phone call. And as well texts and emails.

[NutmeggeRN, BSN]

It would seem as though if one is impacted, the other one would be as well. That's an administrative issue. I hate when the parents want to storm the building...And if their contact info was up to date, there might be fewer issues.

[KeeperOfTheIceRN, ADN]

Yes, we have a message system called SchoolReach that sends a recorded message out to parents to whatever number the sign up with (I get one on my cell phone, home phone, email and hubbys cell phone). In the event of a lock down, parents are told to NOT come to the school. Students will be bused to a predetermined location when they are released and can be picked up there. I know it would suck to not know what is going on (I can't imagine even for myself being on campus, I couldn't be in 3 places at once to make sure all my own kids were ok). But its all for the safety of students and staff.

Do you send the messages DURING the lockdown or is it something that is done after the all clear message?

[NutmeggeRN, BSN]

Usually after the all clear, I believe. That way lines of any type are not tied up and they have (hopefully) all the information at once instead of piecemeal). It is usually never enough of an explanation for the parents tho.

[OyWithThePoodles, RN]

Our district had an incident last month where less than a mile away from three of our schools there were shots fired and reports of the shooter (a former student) tired entering a bus to escape. Those three schools were put on lockdown immediately, and traffic on the road they are on blocked.

I will say, we were getting calls about it before we had even heard anything. Our district does have a "one-call" where each school can individually put out a call (from the principal) or central office and do one for the whole district. While I feel our superintendent did a great job, apparently a lot of parents feel the call did not go out soon enough. I do understand their frustration by not knowing what is going on inside their child's school. Super scary. But I also see it from admin too, they are trying to get the situation under control and make sure all of their students and staff are safe.

You'll never please everyone, there will always be someone thinking they could've done a better job, or saying you should've done xyz instead. As long as admin got the call out as soon as they could, there's nothing else that could be done. Maybe included in the call it should say "please understand that while a facility is in lockdown, the phones and door will not be answered, this is for the saftey of your child and our staff". Either way, parents will panic (understandably so) and be upset afterwards. But if their baby comes home to them at the end of day unharmed, I'd call that a win.

[AdobeRN]

We have basically the same system as previous poster SullyRN.....There are always complaints from parents the few times it has been put to use with the most frequent complaint being the time and the info released in the auto phone call. Parents don't realize that our district is huge ~50,000+ students and it takes a good hour + to get that auto phone message out.

We have been on lockdown a couple of times for random things in the neighborhood but nothing serious. A few years ago we had a terrible storm with tornado winds come thru - the whole district was on a weather lockdown about an hour before dismissal for about 2 hours - OMG some of the parents went berserk because we would not release kids once we had the order for a weather lockdown. The mass phone message went out but because of the number of students some people got the message after it was over- so they were mad about that.

[KeeperOfTheIceRN, ADN]

I guess there's really no "perfect" system. As a parent, I totally get the want and need to know whats going on with my child. But I also have the unique privilege of the school's side as well. Thanks for all y'all's input!!!

[SchoolNurseTXstyle]

If you let any people (EVEN PARENTS) in during a lockdown, it is no longer a lockdown!!!