- Oct 10, 2024
- 3 min read
At last night's PTA meeting, Superintendent Anakarita Allen presented an overview of TECA's safety plan, how it's used, and how drills are run at TECA. Here's an overview of what she shared!
The School Site Emergency Plan is a long, living document that is a school resource for all things safety: prevention/mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery
planning and training. It's explicitly not a guide to be used during an emergency.
You can find the School Site Emergency Plan on the LEA/School Plans page of the TECA website. (LEA stands for Local Educational Agency; TECA is an LEA because it is a public charter school and has its own Board of Education.)
The plan is very long, and includes a LOT of sections, so Ms. Allen focused her presentation specifically on the disaster procedures that are most relevant to TECA:
Air Quality
Earthquake
Fire
Intruder on campus
Lock down & Lock-in
Air Quality
The air quality procedures primarily address smoke from wildfires. Parents can expect a message via the school email/text platform, BrightArrow, when the Air Quality Index (AQI) reaches a level where it's not safe to be outside as much. For example, playing outside is fine during Green, Yellow, and Orange levels, but at Red and Purple, activities need to be shorter or moved inside entirely. The school will follow an official source for the AQI like https://www.airnow.gov/.
Earthquake
The first earthquake drill of the year is usually part of the Great Shake Out, an event in which millions of people practice earthquake safety. This year's event is on October 17, and families are encouraged to participate at work or home as well!
After that first drill, earthquake drills will be run once per month. Administration will announce the drill over the intercom, and teachers will guide their students to duck, cover, and hold. For more specific on earth quake safety, see here!
In the Spring, TECA conducts one evacuation-based earthquake drill (as opposed to staying wherever you are).
Fire
Once a month, the SF Fire Department calls a fire drill at TECA, and it happens then. Ms. Allen said that at the most recent fire drill, the school was fully evacuated in 2 minutes and 15 seconds. When the drill is called, teachers grab theier emergency packs with roll sheets. Admin, yard, office staff and leads have walkie-talkies for communication.
Once a year, an SF Fire Department inspector does a proactive walk-through with Ms. Allen.
Lock-in
If there's a safety issue outside the school, a lock-in can be called, which means that school operates as normal, but the outside doors are fully locked and no one is allowed in or out of the building. This could happen if SFPD identifies an issue in the neighborhood (criminal pursuit, etc.) and asks TECA to initiate a lock-in. TECA has lock-in drills once per trimester.
Lockdown
In a lockdown, everyone stays inside their classroom, office, or bathrooms, and no one comes in or out of the building. There are three kinds of lockdowns:
Intruder on campus — this might trigger a lock-in or a lockdown depending on the situation. This might happen if an unhoused person gains access to the yard or building, for example.
General — this is usually informed by police activity.
Shooter — the staff is trained to handle a shooter with three strategies: evacuation, hiding, and disrupting or incapacitating the shooter as a last resort.
Since most school shootings in the United States are committed by people familiar with the school, the specific plans for handling a shooter are not typically published.
In order to avoid traumatizing students, teachers and staff do not talk about "active shooter" drills or mention why a given drill is taking place. Instead, TECA staff focuses on training the students to listen to adult voices and following directions without panicking.
How the Safety Plan comes to be
TECA has a Safety Planning Committee made up of administrators, teachers, parents, and community members, and it works in consultation with first responders like the fire department and police department to develop and improve the safety plan.
LA County Office of Education has a Campus Safety Group that reviews TECA's safety plan and provides feedback, and TECA is looking for a consultant to help train staff on the many different scenarios that they need to be prepared for.
TECA is also in the process of having the safety plan translated into Spanish so it can be accurate and accessible to the entire TECA community.
