School district prepares for emergencies

During the Board of Education meeting Wednesday, Director of Human Resources, Heidi Fawcett, presented the district’s plan to prepare for and prevent emergencies at Maricopa schools.

In August the Maricopa Unified School District was awarded the Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools (REMS) Grant worth $160,000. Maricopa is one of 91 districts to receive the 18-month grant, one of seven in Arizona.

As part of the REMS grant, the emergency response team created a list of nine items to accomplish before the grant expires. Those items include mapping all schools in the district to provide emergency response teams with detailed information, training all staff and employees on emergency procedures, creating a plan for biohazard emergencies (infectious diseases within the schools) and enlisting the aid of specialists to ensure the emergency plans are cohesive.

Fawcett said the emergency response team will also hold voluntary CPR training for all staff, as well as educational sessions for parents.

Thus far the team has taken steps to improve the emergency equipment and procedures at the schools by purchasing enough emergency packs for every classroom, sending newsletters to parents, meeting with emergency response teams within the city and surrounding communities and practicing drills with the students.

“Our hope is to be able to complete a full evacuation drill by the end of this school year,” Fawcett said.

School Board President Jim Chaston expressed concern that most of the plan entails response and not prevention of emergencies related to student violence. Cpl Kent Ogaard, a school resource officer in the district, said the students will receive educational training on gang violence and bullying, depending on their age. He stressed, however, that the best way to minimize student problems is with the presence of law enforcement.

“Crime cannot be eliminated,” Ogaard said. “But I will stress again that the best way to minimize it is through presence on campus, whether that be from volunteers, parents, teachers or policemen.”

The next step in the process is to send a request for proposal (RFP) to companies who will aid the district in creating a cohesive response plan to combat all types of emergencies.

Also discussed during the Board of Education meeting:

The board approved a Network RFP process to improve the district’s communication infrastructure, which the School Facilities Tteam said is no longer adequate. Growth over the past few years and the addition of new campuses for the 2008/2009 school year prompted the team to make the request now. The motion was approved 4-0; Board Member Tim White was absent.

Also approved were the travel plans for three student group trips, a revised version of the elementary attendance policy and the addition of three positions at Maricopa Wells Middle School. The positions include a Special Education Resource teacher, a Fine Arts teacher and a receptionist. All motions were approved 4-0.

File photo