Traces of mercury were found in school hallways and in the homes of students who were in the classroom at the time of the incident.

While most K-12 schools and colleges have emergency plans in place, some of those plans can go years without being touched. Incidents such as tornadoes, earthquakes or active shooters are rare, but the time to find out whether or not your plans and procedures are effective is not during a real emergency.

Practicing your campus’ response to various emergencies is vital to keeping constituents safe. Since full-scale exercises pose significant challenges for many organizations and require lots of resources, conducting a tabletop exercise is a good alternative that can be done on a regular basis. Related: Tabletop Exercise 1: Student Hasn’t Returned Home from School. What Would You Do?

During these exercises, relevant stakeholders should be brought to the table and presented with real-life scenarios. Each stakeholder should share how they would handle the scenario and a subsequent debriefing should be held to address strengths and weaknesses within emergency plans.

Are you interested in conducting these exercises but are unsure where to start? As a jumping-off point, Guy Bliesner, an analyst for the Idaho Office of School Safety and Security (IOSSS), has provided us with incidents that happened at Idaho schools in the last five years and how those particular schools responded.

Each scenario provides details of the event, along with the real outcome and findings from an after-action report. They are designed to be completed in 10-15 minutes as part of an administrative meeting.

Here are the links to the previous scenarios:

The next scenario is detailed below.

By the time the principal got to the classroom, the end of day bell had rung and the teacher already allowed the 19 students to leave the classroom. The teacher was cleaning up the broken glass when the principal entered the classroom and the custodian was called in. Related: Tabletop Exercise 2: Worsening Odor Leads to Student Asthma Attack

The custodian, a volunteer firefighter, recognizes the hazmat nature of the mercury spill incident, and the local fire chief is contacted. Under his authority, the state hazmat team is mobilized. The team arrives at the school just prior to 7:00 P.M. and the classroom is closed and abate measures are instated.

The hazmat team finds traces of mercury in the hallways moved from the classroom on students’ shoes. Each of the students is contacted at their home and shoes and clothing are checked for mercury. Two students’ shoes are found to be contaminated. The bus ridden by one of those students is also found to have trace amounts of mercury.

The entire school is closed for two days as the abatement process is performed on the classroom, two hallways, one school bus, and two private homes. The school district is financially responsible for the mercury abatement costs.

An after-action review (AAR) of a response should always be completed following an incident. See Part 1 for questions that IOSSS says should be used to review a response.

The AAR in this case determined the hazmat incident was not well handled and no protocol existed in district policy. As a result:

Check back with us on Jan. 6 for the next scenario which involves an armed robber barricading himself in a home the street across from a school.

Amy is Campus Safety’s Senior Editor. Prior to joining the editorial team in 2017, she worked in both events and digital marketing. Amy has many close relatives and friends who are teachers, motivating her to learn and share as much as she can about campus security. She has a minor in education and has worked with children in several capacities, further deepening her passion for keeping students safe. In her free time, Amy enjoys exploring the outdoors with her family.

These Scenarios are Great. As a former Chicago Police Sergeant, I am very familiar with these Table Tops. However, now that I am in Campus Security, I see a real disconnect between Administration and Security. If something like this were to happen at our school, they would immediately turn it over to the municipal fire department. Yet, without containing students and securing the location, as we would with a crime scene in law enforcement; we risk spreading contamination.

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