School Crisis Management

Virginia's schools are responsible for the safety of more than one million students. While safety is always a priority, this responsibility takes on added urgency during times when the Commonwealth and nation continue to be threatened by terrorism.

The Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) offers three publications for use by local educators and law enforcement officers in developing or refining school division-level and building-level crisis plans.

1. The Model School Crisis Management Plan includes model policies, procedures, and forms that can be adopted or modified to meet local needs and accommodate existing resources.

   The Model School Crisis Management Plan focuses on:

   • preparation for crises
   • identification and intervention with students who may present a potential threat
   • response to events which impact the school, but do not present serious threat of harm to students, personnel, or facilities, and
   • management of critical incidents which do involve threats of harm.

   The Model Plan incorporated substantial content from the original Resource Guide for Crisis Management. This foundation document was developed by the Virginia Department of Education in 1996 and has been used extensively throughout Virginia, as well as a number of other states. Hard copies of the original resource guide document are no longer available.

   The Model School Crisis Management Plan was developed in response to amendments to §22.1-278.1, Code of Virginia, enacted by the 1999 Virginia General Assembly, which requires local school boards to ensure that each school develops a written school crisis and emergency management plan. Section 22.1-278 further requires that the Virginia Board of Education develop a model plan for the purpose of assisting public schools in Virginia in developing viable, effective crisis and emergency management plans. This Model Plan was reviewed by the Virginia Board of Education and approved at its June 24, 1999 meeting.

   The pdf version of the Model School Crisis Management Plan may be viewed and printed using Adobe Acrobat. If you do not have Adobe's Acrobat Reader, you may download it here.

   The Model Plan was updated in response to action by the 2002 General Assembly. Two new sections have been provided as addendums to the original plan:
   
   Part I - Terrorism
   Part II - Communications

2. In 2002, the VDOE updated the original resource guide by providing a compilation of the most “user friendly” examples of policies, procedures, guidelines, checklists, forms and background information into the publication, Resource Guide for Crisis Management in Virginia Schools. This 240-page document has been reprinted a number of times and has been used extensively across the country in assisting school districts in developing their own crisis management plans. Hard copies of this publication are no longer available.
   
   
3. The 2006 session of the Virginia General Assembly passed legislation that required changing the term “school crisis emergency management plan” to “school crisis emergency management and medical emergency response plan” and required that the plan include a medical emergency response plan.

   The new 2007 publication, Resource Guide for Crisis Management and Emergency Response in Virginia Schools, represents both best practice and the most recent information available. It was developed with the assistance of a representative advisory group from school divisions and state agencies. While the material in the new publication has been completely revised and updated, the most significant changes are centered around “Chapter IV: Medical Emergencies” and include:

   • School Medical Emergency Response Planning
   • Steps in Planning for Medical Emergencies
   • Protocols
   • Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Automatic Electronic Defibrillator Programs

   At the current time, hard copies of the 2007 Resource Guide for Crisis Management and Emergency Response in Virginia are not available. The document is only available from the VDOE Web site.

For information about the guides, contact Arlene Cundiff, Coordinator of the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program in the Office of Student Services at the Virginia Department of Education by phone at 804-225-2871 or by e-mail: arlene.cundiff@doe.virginia.gov.