Leadership Matters September 2013 .pub

Crisis situations story continued _________________________

2,000 parents of high school students, that’s pretty good. In addition, we received numerous positive posts on Facebook thanking the district for our ongoing communication throughout the incident, and our quick response.  An area of improvement we will work on if there is need in the future: letting our other building administrators and our transportation department know what was happening sooner. We should have done this more quickly than we did. Lesson learned. We are also considering if we

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 Next, I worked with our District Communications Coordinator to compose a press release for our district webpage and district Facebook page. It was simple and concise. It was updated as the situation changed.  The two secretaries in the Morton HS office were amazing, but they needed a script for the numerous parents (and others) who were calling the school to see what was happening. This was

an important step to take and a worthy investment of a few short minutes of time. The script was like our other information -- simple and

need to let neighbors of our high school (or any building) know if/when a school is on lockdown- and pondering the best way to accomplish that task.  It’s important to be cognizant of the emotional toll a threat of violence and hard lockdown has on students, staff and parents. This incident ended with the optimal outcome -- no injuries or fatalities. However, we

concise, telling what we knew at the time. Support staff need to know that the administration has their back.

did allow our students to go home the rest of the day. Few took that option, but it was the gesture that was appreciated. These things scare kids -- and their moms and dads, and our employees. Don’t downplay or minimize their reactions, even if it’s not how we feel.  Thank those that were key to bringing the incident to closure and who were instrumental in handling the crisis -- especially those people whose jobs don’t “normally” entail dealing with crisis situations. In closing, my big takeaway was the need for one specific, designated person to coordinate and handle communications during an incident such as this one. This might seem obvious, but the multilayered, multifaceted dimension to staying a step ahead of the messages the kids and others are sending out requires that the communication effort be coordinated, not disjointed. The use of all of the tools in the communications toolbox proved to be essential in this situation. In any situation, the absence of providing factual information means the vacuum will be filled in a variety of ways -- mostly with inaccurate rumors and speculation.

 Approximately 15-20 minutes after the lockdown commenced, the local media outlets began to call the main office at our high school. They had been alerted to the situation by parents. I answered their questions with the facts as they stood at that time, and encouraged them to watch our webpage and Facebook for updates. I believe and found that it’s better to talk to the media, even if only briefly, and fill them in with what you know at the time.  Throughout the incident, the status of the lockdown changed from “hard” to “soft,” then the incident was over and the school was released from lockdown. We communicated those changes in status via phone blast, emails, and updates on our district webpage and Facebook page.  After the incident was completely over, an email and phone blast was sent to parents with a simple summary/conclusion of the incident. This provided closure and let parents know how the incident was resolved. One parent called me wanting (insisting upon) more information --most of which was confidential. Out of more than

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