INNISFAIL - Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools has updated its communication protocol to ensure parents are notified of threat situations at their children’s schools before they hear about it on social media, say officials.
The update comes following a threat situation at one of the division’s schools in early May.
“Parents are notified first before social media,” superintendent Kathleen Finnigan told the Albertan. “That notification to parents and guardians is our number 1 responsibility, then we can go into the social media and blogs. We want those parents (and guardians) to know first.
“We just needed that one communication piece to parents and guardians to ensure that parents knew a threat was occurring at the school.”
In an update to trustees, associate superintendent Jodi Smith shared a report entitled “Emergency Procedures - Communication: Administrative Command Team (ACT) and Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) Response.
“The division uses the Hour Zero (system) to maintain our emergency preparedness program, and provide employees with access to emergency response and training,” Smith said.
“We activate the ACT when there is a school emergency to help support the online incident commander manage the many moving parts of an emergency. The ACT coordinates the collective activistic of the division’s entire emergency preparedness program. This includes communication to our stakeholders.”
The division has activated the ACT team 17 times so far this year, four of which involved RCMP presence and division/RCMP joint messaging, she said.
On May 9, a threat was received to the St. Martin de Porres School, which required RCMP attendance and a search of the school.
“Our school community was challenged by a threat that potentially could have impacted our safety,” school principal Dorice de Champlain said in a letter sent to parents on May 10.
“We enacted our protocols immediately which ensured student safety and the RCMP support. Thankfully the RCMP were able to assure us that the note that was found was not a viable threat to our safety.”
Following the incident, de Champlain met with the school division’s incident commander and put forward a recommendation that a checklist be developed for schools and the division to prioritize messaging to parents.
In her report presented to trustees, Smith said, “During the recent threat, the parents of the affected school community saw a social media/blog post regarding the threat prior to receiving a Swift K12 (messaging to parents) message from the division communications officer at the school site.
“This was the result of a human error as Swift K12 messaging should take place first when an incident occurs.”
After reviewing the current protocols in place, revisions have been made to ensure proper communication with stakeholders and prevent errors from happening in the future, she said.
Specifically an updated checklist has been developed for the district information officer to support communication with parents and social media.
“This will ensure the correct order of messaging to parents,” said Smith.
The checklist now includes a list of tasks in priority order that should be completed by the school or the division’s Montfort Centre headquarters.
The first task is “Swift K12 to parents/guardians to notify of event and parent response, such as school is evacuating. Please do not come to the school at this time. Wait for further instructions.”
That task is followed by others such a “social media/blog posts to school sites and RDCRS sites” and “develop a parent letter to be sent after the event by the principal to the school community” and “work in collaboration with RCMP to send a joint news release when required.”
The division serves more than 10,000 students in 21 schools, including in Olds and Innisfail.
