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Safety Plan

Safety Plan

During a critical incident at MVHS, for example a tanker truck crash on Highway 34, we may be asked to place our school in “lockdown” or “shelter-in-place” status.  During these critical incidents, communication is a key aspect of our preparedness.  This communication plan is in place to help our school personnel and emergency/police services keep our students and staff safe.

School and District Communication:

While in a lockdown, students are required to NOT use cell phones for voice or text messages as large numbers of cell phone calls will block and interfere with the communications of emergency services.  In critical incidents, a surge in cellular calls could completely disable cell phone towers and thus affect the emergency response time and effectiveness.

Parents DO NOT call the school or your student’s cell phones. We are involved in creating a safe environment for students and staff.  Your phone call to the school can disable and block our communication with emergency services. Parents should not arrive at the school until the situation is resolved as added traffic will interfere with emergency services and may place people on the exterior of the building at greater risk.

Your first point of critical information during a lengthy incident or an incident that would require some level of building evacuation will be the Thompson School District web site: http://tsd.schoolwires.net

If an off-site evacuation is necessary, we are required to move at least 5 miles from the school.  Our plan is to use another school in the district or another site in the district for the evacuation location where  parents can pick up students.  Once at the new location, students will be provided with district landline phone access to call their parents/guardians. Parents will be requested to immediately pick up their student.  Students could also be loaded on buses that will run “regular” bus routes and those students will be dropped at their bus stops or homes.

The district may communicate with local radio and television media as necessary to communicate information for picking up students. The radio stations are: KCOL 600 AM; KPAW 107.9 FM; KOA 850 AM; KLMO 1060 AM; KIIX 1410 AM; KUNC 91.5 FM; KUAD (99.1 FM); KTRR TRI 102 (102.5 FM). Television stations are WBTV Channel 3; KWGN Channel 2; KCNC Channel 4; KMGH Channel 7 and KUSA Channel 9.

During a short-duration lockdown, we will only communicate with parents after the incident is completed by using our automated phone dialing system or by a letter distributed to students.

Parent and Student Communication Plan

Review the information in this plan with your student.

Review family safety procedures you already have in place so your student will feel prepared if an emergency situation occurs.

Develop a family communication plan for a crisis situation. Make sure your student has a list of  emergency contacts.  A small piece of paper with phone numbers and names in a purse, wallet, or backpack could be an excellent resource.

Develop “back-up” procedures for difficult communication situations among family members.  Consider these two examples: both parents may work in Denver or a parent may work at a construction site with limited communication access.