Delaware completes several school safety initiatives.
The Delaware Comprehensive School Safety Program completed new high-resolution maps for every public and charter school and released a new comprehensive school safety plan for every school.
Doug Scheer is the school safety planner for the Delaware Emergency Management Agency.
"We have found out that a lot of the four plans were either outdated or just incomplete overall so we contracted with a company, Critical Response Group, and they physically went out and helped us map every school,” said Scheer. “Schools were involved in this process themselves for mostly for verification purposes. We then have also moved statewide with two other functions – one is the standard reunification method and the standard response protocol."
Delaware is the first state to complete the high-resolution maps.
Scheer says the maps will be delivered to every emergency team in the state.
"Every math that gets done gets pushed to the 9-1-1 centers. So they have them in the event a call comes up they can quickly pull up the map and have it in the event a situation warrants it. All of our police and fire departments get them. All of our county and state emergency management agencies have them, and then in turn we've actually moved them over to the Department of Health and Social Services," said Scheer.
DHSS receiving the maps are for those instances when a school is needed as a shelter after a natural disaster.
The Comprehensive School Safety Program is implementing a statewide Safety and Wellness Suite which will include anonymous reporting, basic needs resources, crisis texting, and behavioral and suicide threat assessments.
Delaware is also the first state to adopt the Standard Response Protocol and Standard Reunification Method.
The response and reunification training in all districts helps train the schools in responding and reuniting students with parents or guardians during any crisis that might occur.
All of the schools have completed the training, and they are putting together reunification teams. So far 221 instructors finished their training with another 145 scheduled for a workshop August 1 and 2 in the Lake Forest School District.
