Student Re-Location Drill Helps VVSD Prepare For the Real Thing

Submitted by Valley View School District 365U

Photo: Emergency student re-location team site coordinator Karen Flories gives directions to members of her team during a mock drill at the Romeoville Recreation Center Monday morning.

Faced with the need to evacuate students from two middle schools because of “pretend” water main breaks, several dozen members of Valley View School District 365U’s Crisis Response Team conducted an emergency re-unification site drill Monday morning.

The drill, a key part of VVSD’s nationally-recognized emergency response plan, was designed to acquaint team members with their roles should the district need to re-locate students during the school day because of a natural disaster or a police-ordered evacuation.

“In most cases, we will try to avoid moving students to a re-unification site,” VVSD Assistant Superintendent for Educational Services Rachel Kinder said. “But special circumstances may require us to do so.”

VVSD has created emergency re-location kits that can be picked up at a moment’s notice by members of the four 15-member emergency response teams and taken to one of the multiple re-location sites in Bolingbrook and Romeoville that have been assigned to each school.

“Our biggest concern is developing a secure process for re-locating the children, taking attendance, re-assuring them that they are safe and communicating that to parents,” Kinder said.

Each emergency re-unification team includes administrators, educators, counselors, and nurses plus members of the transportation, security, technology and attendance departments.

Plans cover everything from busing students to the re-location site to eventually re-uniting students with their parents or guardians. They also include identification of students with “significant health concerns” as well as procedures to provide students with counseling support, games and activities to occupy their time, and, in the case of extended stays, food and water.

Should a real emergency occur, parents will initially be encouraged to stay home and not come to the re-location site.

“The re-unification process will take a while, so we ask parents to be patient,” Kinder said. “We will notify parents through ParentLink that their children are there and they’re safe.”

Once the re-location is complete, VVSD will use all of its communication resources, including the district website, Facebook, Twitter, the mobile app and ParentLink to keep parents informed about re-unification plans and/or plans that could include a return to the classroom.

While Monday’s exercise was designed to cover an evacuation during the school day, VVSD also has protocol in place in case an evacuation is required at dismissal time.

The Crisis Response Team will use the drill to iron out rough spots in the plan. More drills will take place over the next six months.

“Practice doesn’t make perfect,” said Leroy Brown, VVSD’s School Safety Coordinator. “Practice makes habit.”