Disaster Preparedness
When you live on an island that is 5 degrees north of the equator this is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean it’s important that you have a plan incase of typhoons, tsunamis, earthquakes, and fires. During my 8 months on island there have been 3 tsunami alerts, flooding, and extremely high tides that damaged properties. Luckily no one was hurt during these events but it goes to show how important it is to prepare for natural disasters.
Recently I have been working with a counterpart from my school to update the school’s natural disaster preparedness plan. The previous plan was out of date and did not have protocols such as rosters and evacuation maps. The plan was also in English, which is a big problem as, statewide; students do not begin to learn English until the 3rd grade.
The first thing we wanted to do was to create a roster that each teacher would have in their classroom. This roster would have a list of students in their grade sorted by grade level. As the schools records had not been updated since the beginning of the annual year we had to go to each classroom and ask the teachers to write down the names of the students in their homeroom class. Then we typed up all 411 names into an excel spreadsheet and printed and distributed the names to each teacher. The teachers were instructed to use the rosters as a checklist to help them account for students incase of emergency.
After creating and distributing the roster my counterpart and I decided to create the emergency evacuation map for when there is a fire. This involved drawing a map of the school, deciding where to gather in case of a fire, and evaluating which routes are the best for each individual room in the school. After that was done the maps were laminated and distributed to each room in the school.
Then it was announced that IOM would visit the school in the second week of May to accredit us for fire drills. This meant that the fire drill section of the plan had to be the first section to be updated. My counterpart and I reviewed and rewrote the fire plan and talked to the teachers about the changes in procedures.
On Thursday May 4th, with four weeks left of school, we had our first Fire Drill of the school year. The principal and resource education teachers chose a random time to turn on the fire alarm. This happened to be during my 3rd period English reading class with one of the 5th grade classes. The students were very shocked and a little scared when they heard the fire alarm but since we had reviewed what they should do they all behaved really well. The students lined up on the baseball field by grade level and class sections. IOM postponed their visit but I was really happy with how well the students did.
Whilst there still is a lot of work to be done with the plan I’m very glad that the first few steps of it were successful.
Recently I have been working with a counterpart from my school to update the school’s natural disaster preparedness plan. The previous plan was out of date and did not have protocols such as rosters and evacuation maps. The plan was also in English, which is a big problem as, statewide; students do not begin to learn English until the 3rd grade.
The first thing we wanted to do was to create a roster that each teacher would have in their classroom. This roster would have a list of students in their grade sorted by grade level. As the schools records had not been updated since the beginning of the annual year we had to go to each classroom and ask the teachers to write down the names of the students in their homeroom class. Then we typed up all 411 names into an excel spreadsheet and printed and distributed the names to each teacher. The teachers were instructed to use the rosters as a checklist to help them account for students incase of emergency.
After creating and distributing the roster my counterpart and I decided to create the emergency evacuation map for when there is a fire. This involved drawing a map of the school, deciding where to gather in case of a fire, and evaluating which routes are the best for each individual room in the school. After that was done the maps were laminated and distributed to each room in the school.
Then it was announced that IOM would visit the school in the second week of May to accredit us for fire drills. This meant that the fire drill section of the plan had to be the first section to be updated. My counterpart and I reviewed and rewrote the fire plan and talked to the teachers about the changes in procedures.
On Thursday May 4th, with four weeks left of school, we had our first Fire Drill of the school year. The principal and resource education teachers chose a random time to turn on the fire alarm. This happened to be during my 3rd period English reading class with one of the 5th grade classes. The students were very shocked and a little scared when they heard the fire alarm but since we had reviewed what they should do they all behaved really well. The students lined up on the baseball field by grade level and class sections. IOM postponed their visit but I was really happy with how well the students did.
Whilst there still is a lot of work to be done with the plan I’m very glad that the first few steps of it were successful.
Comments
Post a Comment