School or Daycare Center Evacuation Plans

Author: danielkilburn 2022-09-14 0 Comments

Day 13 of National Preparedness Month

Evacuation plans for your children’s school or daycare center

Learn about emergency plans for your children’s school or daycare center. School is in session across the country. Now is the time to determine what your children’s School or Day Care center has planned if they need to evacuate your children in case of an emergency.

Remember that one of three things will happen during a disaster or emergency.

Number one: you will stay in place until the emergency is over.

Number two: you will evacuate because staying in places is not safe.

Number three: you will stay in place until it is determined that you need to leave because your safety is in jeopardy.

Download and print the Parent Emergency Evacuation Information sheet here.

The intent of this form is to identify what the school or the daycare facility will do if they need to evacuate your child from the property

If you have children in multiple schools of facilities, create a page for each one of them.

The parent emergency evacuation information form has Location and contact information, and four sections relating to where your children will be taken in the event of injury or evacuation.

Section One identifies where your children will go if they need to leave the facility on foot.

Section Two identifies where the children will be transported by vehicle if necessary.

Section Three identifies the hospital or health care facility your child will be transported to if need be.

And section four identifies where your children will be transported by vehicle if there is a major environmental non-confined emergency.

Based on my experience with multiple school boards you can get three different answers.

Number one: Whoever you are talking to has no idea what you are talking about.

Number two: You will be told this is propriety information and you are not authorized to have it.

Number three: You will receive the information you’re asking for.

Possible Outcomes

If you get answer number one, ask who you can speak to to get the information if it is available. Get that person’s name and phone number and call them directly yourself. Do not rely on whomever you’re speaking to, to pass your information on, and they will get back to you.  

If you get answer number two where they tell you that this is propriety information, you are not authorized to have it. Remind them that you are the parent and you are authorized to have this information.

The best answer I got from a school official who refused to give me this information was that they do not want this information falling into the hands of terrorists who could use it to harm their children.

If the individual you are speaking with still refuses to give you the information, you may need to escalate this personally by going to the school board. Eventually, you will get the information.

If you get the third answer, thank the person that gave you the information and ask them how often this information is updated,  when any changes are made, and how you can get that information.

 Worst case scenario

If your child’s school, the school board or daycare center cannot answer these questions because they’ve never thought about evacuating the children. Something should be done to correct it.

 Not all-inclusive

This Parent Evacuation Information form does not cover everything in the school, and daycare center emergency plan.

Feel free to ask the school, school board, or daycare director to outline all necessary emergency procedures that they have in place to protect your children.

This should be a public document and you should have access to it.

Additional Information:

https://www.emergencyactionplanning.com/2019/09/15/children-and-disasters-npm-week-3/

Till next time

“Be Safe”

P.S. Remember to take advantage of the free Disaster and Emergency Planning Assessment. Identify the strengths of your family’s disaster plan and what you can do to improve on it.