Local School Officials Take a Close Look at Crises

Though almost a year has passed since the massacre at Columbine High School, campus shootings were on the minds of Ventura County school administrators as they met for a Thursday morning workshop about crisis response.

About 30 assistant principals from Moorpark to Mupu attended the seminar at the Ventura County superintendent of schools office, where they reviewed safety plans and school maps and brainstormed how to prevent and handle disasters.

Marleen Wong, director of the crisis teams, mental health services and suicide-prevention programs for the Los Angeles Unified School District, presented the three-hour seminar.

“There are two types of schools,” Wong told the educators. “Those that have had a major crisis and those that are about to.”

Wong, who helped coordinate crisis response after the Northridge earthquake, the Los Angeles riots and the shootings in Littleton, Colo. and Springfield, Ore., urged the Ventura County educators to form crisis teams in their schools. The teams should include an administrator, a counselor, a nurse, a psychologist, a physician, a police officer and a teacher, she said.

They should be ready to respond to anything from a shooting to an earthquake to a fire, Wong said. The team should also be on hand for incidents that occur off campus, such as the suicide of a teacher or the drowning of a student.

After a shooting or violent incident occurs on or off campus, Wong said, many students are afraid to go to school. They can’t concentrate on schoolwork. They suffer from depression.

The role of a crisis team, Wong said, is to help that school return to a normal environment. That means keeping parents informed, counseling students or responding to the media.

“After a crisis, we need to bring those kids back as soon as possible,” she said. “We need to get back to the business of learning.”

While Robert Garcia was working at Monroe High School, three shootings occurred near the campus in less than a year. Now the assistant principal at Simi Valley High School, Garcia said Ventura County schools need to realize that they are not immune to disaster.

“There’s not an appreciation of the reality or possibility of something happening here,” he said. “Unfortunately, it’s just a matter of time before one of our schools experiences one of those incidents.”

After the shooting at Columbine, a wave of bomb threats, evacuations and arrests swept through Ventura County schools. The incidents prompted school officials to reevaluate their safety plans, and to take a closer look at their struggling students.

School administrators installed fences, bought surveillance cameras and hired additional police officers and counselors. They also held school-wide assemblies to review disaster plans with students and staff.

Arturo Barragan, learning director at Driffill Elementary School in Oxnard, said Ventura County schools have far fewer mental health and emergency personnel than Los Angeles schools. Barragan was working at a school in Los Angeles after the Northridge earthquake, and remembers school officials responding quickly and efficiently.

“They’re like a city within a city,” he said. “They have resources that we don’t. But we’re getting there. We have a framework.”

Coming together to talk about crisis preparation and response is a good first step, Barragan said. “Awareness is the most important thing,” he said. “If you have a plan, you’ll know what to do when you have a crisis.”

During the workshop, Wong asked the assistant principals to recite the first steps they would take if a shooting occurred on their campus.

They answered quickly and assertively. Secure the school. Lock down. Call 911. Clear the campus. Tell students to go into the nearest classroom. Call the district office.

“On a day-to-day basis, we never know what’s going to happen,” said Beverly Eidmann, assistant principal at Westlake Hills Elementary School. “We need to be prepared and to make sure that our campuses are as safe as possible.”