Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Crisis Plan In Place For Emergencies

While there may be no way to prevent school violence completely, the Gurdon School District is working to keep the problem at a minimum.

The district has a crisis plan to use should a tragedy occur.

If a tragedy does occur at one of the schools, the principal's first responsibility is to contact the administration and faculty members to attend a special meeting to review the situation and explain the day's agenda.

The counselor, or an invited psychologist or psychiatrist, should describe how students may react to the news, and suggest how teachers should handle the situation.

The principal should then meet with key people to plan the day's activities and designate someone to be a spokesman for communicating with the media.

All school activities should return to normal as soon as possible, though it could take some teachers and students two or three years to come to grips with the situation.

The crisis team at Gurdon has Superintendent Bobby Smithson as the team coordinator and media contact. Leonard Gills, Gurdon High School principal is the assistant coordinator. Melissa Franklin and Rita Guthrie are the counselors and information control people, while Debbie Daniels is the direct treatment and medical advisor. Teresa Griffin is charge of office communications.

The plan includes crisis situations such as serious injury, death, or the threat of death at school of a student or others; an incident of destruction which may cause injury or death, or the possibility of injury or death; or a situation of the above nature not happening on school grounds, but needing to be dealt with at school because of the effect it may have on students and school personnel.

For an in school emergency, such as suicide, serious injury or the threat thereof, all crisis team members must be contacted.

Students are to be removed from the immediate area to a crisis center, and witnesses, if any, should be taken to a protected, well-supervised area as soon as possible.

Medical assistance and law enforcement officials are to be called, if an injury has occurred or a weapon is involved.

The crisis team should convene for assessing the situation and determine what should be done next.

All bells will be turned off, or rang if student's aren't in class.

Students are to remain in place and staff be notified until the crisis is under control.

Parents will be contacted, with team members assigned to work with them and any siblings or other relatives necessary.

Other team members will be assigned to work with the emotional reactions of other students and witnesses, making sure the situation is under control.

Should the situation require students to leave the school, they should be checked out through the front office by a parent or guardian only, then leave school grounds and not return.

If possible, under the plan, students should not be home alone, and if they would be, they should be kept at school.

In the event something happens after hours and off school grounds, the situation will be assessed, and if the threat is immediate, work with the contacting party until the crisis is resolved or until it's determined the crisis can't be immediately resolved.

Depending upon the assessment, emergency personnel will be contacted, and if the situation warrants, the crisis team will meet to determine what, if any, action is to be taken to prepare for school.

Smithson said there's no way to prevent possible violence at school, pointing out a recent incident where a student threatened others.

The student later said he only wanted to scare others who had been bothering him, and meant no harm. However, the district took a dim view of the threats, calling the authorities and having the student taken away.

At a special meeting of the Gurdon School Board, the student was suspended for the remainder of the year, and if he returns next year, he will spend the term at in school suspension (ISS).

Smithson said children today see too much violence on television and in movies.

However, when a threat is made at a local school, he said, it won't be taken lightly and will be acted upon quickly.