Are Schools Ready If Disaster Strikes?

May 17, 2007 — -- There are 17,000 school districts and 49 million public school students — but will they be protected in case of an emergency or natural disaster?

A new government report presented to the House Homeland Security Committee in a Thursday hearing on the issue of school emergency preparedness raises some questions about the districts' emergency procedures.

The Government Accountability Office's Cornelia Ashby noted, in a prepared statement, that even though many districts have developed such plans, "in many districts, these plans, or their implementation, do not align with federally recommended practices."

Some of those practices include incorporating special needs students into the plan and coordinating with local law enforcement and first responders.

"Parents will forgive educators, legislators and others they have entrusted their children's educational direction to if their children's test scores go down for a year," school safety expert Kenneth Trump said in a statement prepared for the committee.

"They are much less forgiving if something happens to their children that could have been prevented or better managed when it could not be avoided," he continued.

There is no federal law requiring school districts to create and maintain emergency management plans, though GAO findings say 32 states report having laws or policies in place that require districts to do so.

The report says less than half of districts with emergency management plans bring the "local head of government" or the "local public health agency" into the fold when updating plans, a move the federal government recommends.

Just over half — 52 percent — of all school districts with the plans, reported to GAO researchers that they update those plans regularly — at least once a year — which shows that almost half do not re-evaluate the plans often. And 10 percent of districts report that they've never updated their plans.

The report says school officials indicate that communicating with students is not usually an issue, but reaching out to parents and coordinating with first responders can be challenging.

An estimated 62 percent of districts surveyed reported problems arising from "a lack of equipment, training for staff, and personnel with expertise in the area of emergency planning as obstacles to implementing recommended practices."

In the years since the 1999 shootings at Colorado's Columbine High School, and more recently, since last month's rampage at Virginia Tech in which a student killed 32 students and instructors before taking his own life, school security has been questioned by parents, schools and legislators.

"The harsh reality is that while there have been many improvements in school security and school emergency preparedness ... that progress has stopped and has actually slipped backward since recent years, due in many cases to cuts in school safety and emergency preparedness funding for K-12 schools," Trump remarked.

The report points to the Department of Education's emergency response and crisis management grant program, which, it says, doled out $130 million since the 2003 fiscal year.

But Trump points to the grant program's decline in applications received and funding awarded — dropping from more than $39 million in 2003 to just more than $24 million last year — as part of the problem.

"At a time when Congress is funding more resources to protect our national infrastructure, such as airports, monuments and the hallways of our government offices themselves, how can we justify cutting almost 40 percent from an already pithy amount of funding for helping to protect the children and teachers in the hallways of our nation's schools?" Trump asked.

He also noted the applications for the grants are due near the end of the school year, when administrators tend to be busy with other tasks.

Both the GAO study and Trump observe school districts would benefit from more tools to bolster emergency plans, and a clarification of federal programs and funding available, coupled with increased guidance for the local districts.

After hearing from both Trump and Ashby in Thursday's hearing, House Homeland Security chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said the committee would likely have more questions for the panelists and would seek their opinion in the future.

The GAO anticipates the release of its final report on the issue in next month.