When Tragedy Strikes A Community, Young Students Are Effected

WHEN TRAGEDY STRIKES OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL, WHO IS THINKING ABOUT THE EFFECT ON OUR KIDS IN SCHOOL?

TRAGIC EVENT: In Erie, Pennsylvania, a 29 yr old man shot and killed a 27 yr old woman and their two daughters (ages 4 and 7) in his home before killing himself.

Who in Erie County has considered the effects of these deaths upon their fellow school children? Who in a community coordinates with schools when a tragedy outside of school occurs? What about the students who know the young girls that were killed? Reacting to a community tragedy and determining the impact upon your student population immediately puts a school leadership team into the RECOVERY PHASE of the Emergency Management Process.

Post Tragedy Intervention For a School /School District:

• Designate someone to track incidents which occur that could effect our young students.
• Have that designee discuss the incident with school leadership and the guidance department and school psychologist to develop a strategy for crisis counseling.
• Identify and solicit for students effected by the tragedy to determine the scale and scope
• Review the resources available for counseling those students designated as requiring counseling.
• Develop counseling courses of action:
• Individual student counseling 
• Group or class counseling 
• Class Discussion with scripted counseling points
• School Announcement or Assembly
• Memorial Service

Someone needs to be looking out for the students when tragedy (fires, violence, accidents, crimes, etc.)  occurs in our communities. What are we doing for them when they come to school?

 

15 Yr Old Student Holds Class Hostage & Then Kills Himself in Wisconsin

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT TAKES CLASSROOM HOSTAGE, FIRES SHOTS, KILLS HIMSELF

Nov 29, 2010   Marinette, Wisconsin. A 15 yr old student (Sam Hengel) from Marinette High School went on a bathroom break during his 6th period social studies class. He retrieved a backpack from his locker with 2 semi-automatic pistols, 200 rounds of ammunition, and a pair of knives. He entered the classroom and held 23 classmates and his teacher (Valerie Burd) hostage. He immediately fired three shots, blasting a hole in a wall and tearing apart a film projector. No one else in the school apparently recognized the sound of the shots as gunfire. 

Students talked to Sam Hengel about everything from hunting and fishing to his favorite movies in an attempt to keep him calm. Hengel told the teacher to post a note on the door telling seventh-period students to report to the library. As a result, no one realized the class was in danger until about a half-hour after school ended, when a man came to the school office looking for his daughter. Principal Corry Lambie determined the last class the girl attended was Western Civilization and went to the room to find the door locked. When Lambie unlocked the door, Hengel pointed his gun at him and told him to leave. Hengel allowed the girl to go with Lambie.

The standoff dragged on for four more hours, with teacher acting as a go-between for Hengel and police. A SWAT team stormed the room after Hengel fired three shots about 8 p.m., destroying the classroom phone and hitting a computer. Hengel shot himself as officers reached him. He died the next morning at 10:44 am. The hostages were released until 8 pm.

TIMELINE OF THE INCIDENT:

1:30 pm 6th period classes start. 26 students report to the Western Civilization class taught by Valerie Burd (Rm A111). Some time during 6th period, Sam Hengel requests to go to the restroom and returns with a duffel bag containing weapons. Holds classmates and teacher hostage.

2:10 pm transition to 7th period classes. Students reporting to Mrs. Burd's classroom see note on door instructing them to report to the library as previously planned.

3:12 pm The school day ends.

3:40 pm A  parent who has been trying to reach his daughter to pick her up arrives at the high school office. Principal Lambie reviewed student daily attendance records to determine that the student was present at 6th period but not 7th. The same was true for a friend of that student.

3:45 pm Principal Lambie goes to Rm A111 and found the room dark with the door locked. He unlocked the door and entered the room. Sam Hengel pointed a weapon at him and told him to leave. The student whose father had come to the school left the room also.

3:48 pm Principal Lambie calls 9-1-1 to report the incident. The building was evacuated and Room A111 was isolated.

3:51 pm First law enforcement officer arrives on scene. Additional law enforcement and emergency medical continue to arrive.

7:40 pm Five (5) students are allowed to leave the classroom after requesting to use the restroom.

8:03 pm Gunshots are heard in the classroom and law enforcement personnel breach the door. The suspect shoots himself as authorities approach. Remaining students and the teacher are safely evacuated. During the night, an explosive detection canine conducts a safety sweep of the building and investigators collect evidence.

SEE DISCUSSION IN A FUTURE BLOG

Teen Suicide Due To Sexting

THE DANGERS OF TEEN AGE TEXTING and ONLINE

In September 2009, a 13-year-old girl in Florida named Hope Witsell hanged herself. Raised in a rural Florida suburb, she was the only child of a church-going couple who met in the post office where they're both employed.  Hope's suicide became the second with a clear link to sexting and the peer torture that can follow from it. At the end of seventh grade last spring, Hope sent a photo of her breasts to a boy she liked, and the picture went viral at her school. "Tons of people talk about me behind my back and I hate it because they call me a whore!" Hope wrote in her journal before her death.

Jessie Logan, who was 18 and lived outside Cincinnati, hanged herself last July after nude photos she sent to her boyfriend circulated widely among teenagers she knew. What explains this awful chain of events that leads to tragedy? Is this just the usual bullying, only with different tools, or a distinct harm unto itself? And are these isolated cases or legitimate cause for the wider uproar over sexting?

Points To Consider:
With each technological change in our student's lives, we must consider the positive and negative consequences. Parents need to monitor, and if warranted, modify the texting features of their kids to ensure their kids are doing the right things at the right times.

School Safety Drills News Story

This is a news story which talks about the importance of drills and designing them to cause the school community to think. I do not agree with color codes and am a fan of the use of plain language instead such as LOCKDOWN vice Code Red....

EDUCATIONAL LEADER'S CRITICAL INFORMATIONAL REQUIREMENTS

DETERMINING WHAT INFO YOU NEED TO KNOW & ENSURING THE PEOPLE IN YOUR SCHOOL KNOW TO KEEP YOU INFORMED IS CRITICAL TO RUNNING A SAFE & PREPARED SCHOOL.

AS AN EDUCATIONAL LEADER (PRESIDENT OF A COLLEGE, SUPERINTENDENT, PRINCIPAL), When it comes to Critical Information these are some key questions you may want to ask yourself:

• WHAT DO YOU NEED TO KNOW?
• WHO KNOWS IT?
• HAVE THEY TOLD YOU YET?

CRITICAL INFORMATION CATEGORIES:

• Death, Injury, Accident, Threat, Crime or Harassment, Bullying of a Student or School Employee
• Dangerous or Poor Weather (Wind, Rain, Storm, Lightening, Ice, Snow, Heat, Tornado, Hurricane)
• Information about the School Facility / Plant (Loss of Heat, A/C, Electricity, Water, Sewage, Air Quality, Virus/MRSA, etc.)

Situation: PRINCIPAL IN THE DARK: A Principal returned to school after a weekend and started his typical Monday morning. Over the weekend a number of things had occurred that the Principal was unaware. A number of individuals within the school community were aware of the negative events which occurred but had not shared with the Principal. A well known & beloved out-in-town after-school community program counselor (who had helped generations of students) had died of a heart attack and a former student had been stabbed out in town by a member of a different racial group. The injured student was dating another student in school as well.

• Some teachers were aware of the student's attack and the community counselor's death, but did not discuss with school leadership. They assumed they knew about it.
• School Resource Officer was on vacation as was not made aware of the act of violence and the police did not communicate this with the school leadership. Principal assumed the police would keep her informed if an act of violence pertaining to a student occurred even if it was out in town. 

The Principal discovered this when the Guidance Department reported a large volume of despondent students reporting to see their guidance counselors about the community counselor's death. The girlfriend of the attacked student was generating drama about what had happened and there were some discussions about concerns about the possibility about retribution. This all made for a tense and frustrating Monday morning leaving the Principal feeling like he was the last one to know about what was going on.

As the Educational Leader of your institution to not be kept informed of important information will cause you to REACT to events instead of PREVENT or be able to shape and influence incidents that ocur and the negative information associated with it.

Animal Threats in the School Community (Natural Threats)

BEAR ATTACKS BOY WALKING TO ALASKA BUS STOP AND DEER CHARGES THRU  SCHOOL WINDOW

Whether it is a freak occurrence like a deer charging a reflection or a human OR a bear which is startled or hungry accidents and attacks can occur to affect our school community.

ALASKA BEAR ATTACK AT SCHOOL BUS STOP:  A 12 year old boy walking alone to his school bus stop in the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District in Seward, Alaska was attacked by a female brown bear, but escaped serious injuries. It was dark, and the student saw the bear approaching with cubs and turned to leave, but the bear caught up with him and knocked him to the ground. The boy knew to cover up and his backpack bore the brunt of the attack. The bear lost interest and departed. He was taken to Providence Seward Hospital and was released. 

Lesson Learned:

• Parents are urged to stay with their children while waiting for the school bus to arrive
• Garbage left in the area is a draw for bears as a food source.

DEER JUMPS THRU OHIO SCHOOL WINDOW:  A big antlered buck deer charged through a glass window pane and into a student union at an Ohio Denison University before it was killed. The deer was locked inside the room before it was killed. It is believed the deer saw his reflection in the glass and mistook it for another male deer and charged the image through the glass.

DEER CRASHES THRU WINDOW AT DESALES UNIVERSITY (PA) BEFORE CLASS: On November 3, at 8:54 a.m., a 6-point, 300 pound dressing weight buck slammed through a first floor window a few minutes before a History and Philosophy of Sport class was about to begin. About 6 students were in the classroom at the time. The buck was chasing a doe up to the window. After crashing through the window, the buck began to thrash, kicking over desks and backpacks and scattering papers throughout the classroom. The commotion caused student Harry Getty ’13, to exit through the window. “I didn’t see anything until I heard a thud against the wall and then a huge crash, a black thing landed right next to me …. I saw its legs start kicking and knocking over bags and when I saw the antlers I knew what it was so I tried to jump through the bottom window, but since the blind was still down I banged my head on a metal bar before I landed outside. In hindsight, I probably should have gone through the big hole the deer had just made, because I cut my hands up on the glass that fell on the counter,” said Getty.

Getty sustained cuts on his hands, forehead and thigh, but was immediately treated by EMS and was taken to the hospital. 2 members of Campus Police arrived at the scene after receiving multiple emergency calls.   “When we arrived on the scene we found an injured buck in the classroom with one of its rear legs broken to the extent where it could not make the leap back out of the classroom,” said Officer Tempinski. Because of the deer’s injuries and out of concern for student welfare, Tempinski decided to put the deer down and two shots were fired from to do so.  The classroom was cleaned extensively and was in use the next day.

Points for Discussion:

• CAN HAPPEN ANYWHERE: Not every school is located in an urban environment and even so, sometimes nature invades even heavily populated areas due to overpopulation. For example, in some suburban areas of New Jersey their have been an over population of bears and increased opportunity for bear-human interaction.
• SURVIVAL KNOWLEDGE: The boy who was attacked by the brown bear had been taught to play dead in order to survive. This knowledge may have saved his life.
• SEASONAL ANIMAL THREATS: Various animals behavior changes during various seasons and can as discussed above, can affect our school communities.
• RECOVERY PHASE of EM PROCESS: Post incident part of an incident requires tasks in the RECOVERY PHASE such as counseling (kids afraid of waiting at bus stops, terror of a 300 lb buck jumping thru their class window) and class room clean up and repair.

REMEMBER, SCHOOL PREPAREDNESS IS AN ALL HAZARD MINDSET.

High Wind Gusts can create Natural Hazards that can Kill or Injure

HIGH WINDS CAN INJURE AN KILL, NOT JUST HURRICANES AND TORNADOES!!!!

High wind gusts knock over hydraulic lift and kill a student taping a college football practice.
A 20 yr old college student (Declan Sullivan) who was videotaping a Notre Dame football practice was killed when high winds knocked over the hydraulic scissor lift he was standing upon. The lift was used as a platform to provide an overhead vantage point to film the practice. According to sources, the directions that came with the lift warned against its use during high winds. The wind gusts caused towels and a Gatorade cooler to fly into the air as well as the netting on the goal post to bend. Sullivan even tweeted that it was "terrifying" during the 51 mph wind gusts before he was killed. Sullivan died en route to the hospital in South Bend Indiana.

Strong winds knock over a 10 foot high brick wall at a school killing a construction worker.
In July 2010, a storm in the small town of Edgerton, Ohio destroyed a small town and damaged homes. In August 2010, a construction worker was killed at a northwest Ohio school construction site when a brick wall fell on him following some strong winds that blew through the area. It was undetermined if the previous storm weakened the wall or if it was strong winds that day caused it to collapse.


 Commentary:

• Unless we receive a dangerous weather warning, we typically don't pay much heed to bad weather. It is important for all school personnel to develop an ALL HAZARD MINDSET to identify what CAN or MIGHT cause injury, damage, or death to people in our school community. While not being paranoid, it is important to THINK and PLAN WORST CASE SCENARIO when it comes to school preparedness. 
• Hope for the best, PLAN for the Worst, and you will be READY for anything in between.
• Following the storm in Ohio, was their a structural safety assessment conducted at the school / construction site to identify hazards? 
• The RECOVERY PHASE of an incident (June storm) can often get overlooked, but the inability to recover from an incident can create conditions for another hazardous incident.
• The GIFT of FEAR: Imagine if Declan Sullivan listened to his inner voice that caused him to tweet he was terrified and he got down from the hydraulic lift instead of tweeting his concern. Often times we can only lessen the hazards (seen and unseen) by degrees, but that might make all of the difference. In the preparedness business, it is often said, "you make your luck" .

WEATHER CAN KILL, IF YOU DON'T PAY ATTENTION TO IT.