School district outlines crisis management in wake of deaths
Date: 9/25/2012
By Chris Maza
chrism@thereminder.comEAST LONGMEADOW — In the wake of the deaths of two students at Birchland Park Middle School in recent weeks, the East Longmeadow Public Schools have been actively offering services to students and staff to help them cope with the loss.
On Aug. 26, a 13-year-old female student lost a long battle with cancer, while on Sept. 15, an 11-year-old boy passed away, again prompting a quick response from the school and the district.
While circumstances in the two tragedies were different, Superintended Gordon Smith told
Reminder Publications that East Longmeadow Public School staff was adequately trained in how to handle such crisis situations.
"Every teacher receives an emergency crisis plan so that everyone knows at least the initial step of identified situations," he said.
In crisis situations, a team within a school building — consisting of the principal, assistant principals, guidance counselors, the school nurse and adjustment counselors — assesses the situation and formulates a course of action based on the specific situation.
"That group will be the initial group that will meet and determine next steps in terms of what communication should be getting out to staff and to students," Smith said. "Sometimes that depends on the timing of the situation. Often we will try to have that first group meet as quickly as possible."
Normally, he added, once the initial plan is formulated by the school's crisis team, a faculty meeting take place to inform and better educate staff of the plan going forward.
"[We also] inform staff of what they should look for in terms of basic signs of someone who may be struggling with processing the situation," he said
The crisis team will also determine whether or not additional support beyond the counselors that exist in the building is needed.
"With counselors, we try to look at how to support everyone involved emotionally, how to allow people to feel comfort in some of the structured routines of an actual school day and what additional supports you might bring to the building," Smith said. "What we generally do and have done in these cases, is add to the existing guidance counselor and adjustment counselor staff with counselors from other buildings so that students are supported and for that matter staff is supported."
Depending on the situation, he added, a counselor might be assigned to a specific classroom.
"Those become very unique to the situation themselves," he said.
Either way, Smith explained that staff members make an effort to encourage students to take advantage of their counselors.
"Staff outlines in a message to students if they would like to ask questions or get further support where they can go in the building," he said.
After each day, the school's crisis team meets again to assess the situation and determine whether any adjustments to the plan need to be made.
While there is a procedure regarding communication within the school and the district, communication between the district and the rest of the community depends greatly upon the situation, Smith said.
"Communication with the community is often dictated by the family themselves, depending on what they would like to do an how they would like us to interact and support," he said.
While students in such situations are the first priority, Smith said the district makes a conscious effort to look after its staff as well.
"We're a people industry. There's a connection [between student and staff] and it could be more than one building's staff. If it's a student situation such as these, you have a person who may have passed through a number of our buildings," he said. "Now you're looking at more of a district-wide plan to make sure we're supporting in each of the buildings. The main focus is the building at which the student was enrolled, but you have to also think of the other buildings."
