School committee approves crisis response plan

EASTON – In an effort to be better prepared for the unexpected, school officials approved on Tuesday night a new crisis response plan for the Easton School Department, according to Easton Superintendent Frank Keenan.

The Easton School Committee reviewed the document and accepted several recommendations from an ad hoc committee that has worked on the policy for the past few months. Before the committee’s work, the policy had not been reviewed since 1999.

“The world has changed significantly since the policy was written,” Keenan said Wednesday. “There has been a significant increase in knowledge around what needs to be included in a good, workable crisis and emergency response plan. We wanted to use that knowledge to make sure our plan was as current and workable as possible.”

The ad hoc committee – made up of community members, teachers, technical educators, the head custodian, school board members, parents, the school nurse and law enforcement officers – reviewed the policy, including in their research the latest information from the federal and state level about what needs to be in an emergency response policy, Keenan said.

The new policy outlines individuals’ responsibilities in an emergency situation, clarifies where evacuation sites are, and requires emergency response kits to be kept in classrooms and school buildings, the superintendent said.

As a result of its research, the committee made several recommendations, including changing the door handles on all elementary classroom doors to make them both handicapped-accessible and lockable from the inside, so a school lockdown could occur quickly and safely, Keenan said. The committee also recommended that the school department upgrade the high school intercom system, which now has only one-way communication from the main office to individual classrooms, to a two-way communication system, so that in an emergency situation, communication could take place more efficiently.

Both the crisis response plan and the recommendations were approved by the board, Keenan said.