There Has Got To Be A Better Way

My 3 youngest children ride the bus to and from school.  They are special needs, so the bus only has 5 students on it and it comes straight to our house.  The bus normally arrives at our house at 3:30pm. If there is a problem like traffic the bus aide gives me a call to let me know that they are running late.  Yesterday at 3:40 I get an email that says

 As a result of an evacuation today at XXX Elementary School, some of the buses used for XXX Elementary Schools will have substantial delay due to the buses be held up at dismissal at XXX School.  If you have any questions, please contact your child’s school.

I am completely unaware that any school in our district was evacuated yesterday, so right away I am concerned. I try to call the school as my husband tries to check the local newspapers website and search the internet for any information.  We have had several of these evacuations over the past few months.  Some are planned drills to which we are informed ahead of time.  Others have been in response to a threat. In the previous events I have received an alert text message saying such and such is happening, stay away from the area, etc, etc. In addition the local newspaper will usually report it on their FB page, but yesterday neither of those things happened.

When I got the email I was concerned, but not overly so.  It could have been a planned drill and I just didn't get the paper, but the more I thought about it the more that didn't make sense.  Those drills happen during the school day and should in no way effect the bus schedule.  As time kept ticking and I was not able to find info or get through to the school, I started to get more agitated.  My anxiety was short lived, thankfully.  I was getting ready to have my husband go hunt down our children's bus, when it pulled up to our house.  Kids are safe. All is well.  

About 20 minutes after my children were home I received a recorded message from the county essentially saying the same thing as the email except this time they said the incident took place at the middle school.  It turns out it was a bomb threat at the middle school not the elementary school.

I want to say that in general I have a very high opinion of my children's school, their teachers and administrators.  Without exception I believe that they are good people who have shown me time and time again that they do care about my kids and their education.  They are not crazed "zero tolerance' advocates.  They appear to have common sense when dealing with a variety of issues that come up and they don't seem to be afraid to use that common sense instead of just blindly following some arbitrary policy put in place by the higher ups.  I trust them with my children.

I also want to say that I am under no delusion that the school could 100% guarantee my children's safety no matter what plan they have in place.  I get that life is a risk and even if one does everything right, someone could get hurt or die, that is not my problem, my problem is that there seem to be no plan. 

I called and spoke with the principal at our children's school and pretty much they were caught off guard.  They had a plan to deal with an actual threat, but they didn't have one if that threat lasted longer than a school day.  Once they(not sure who "they" is) realized there was an issue with the buses, they started to formulate their plan and it was not a good one. 

In a real crisis which they believed they were in, there is chaos and I would not expect the folks at the effected school to worrying about emailing parents or the bus schedule, but there had to be someone else in our district that could have said, Huh, maybe we should get some information out.  Maybe we should do it in a way that does not incite fear and panic.  Apparently there is no such person in our district.

The threat was over before school ended, so it is feasible that someone could have let the families know that 1. The situation had been resolved and no one was hurt. 2. That the buses would be late before they were actually late and 3. Define "substantial delay."

How about we think proactively.  How about we learn from all the other incidents around the country. How about something like this...

Earlier today at XXX school there was a bomb threat and the school was evacuated.  The situation has been resolved, everyone is safe.  However, due to the evacuation some of the buses are delayed.  Your child/children may arrive home 15-30 minutes later than usual.  If you have any questions please contact  XYZ. 

Now that wasn't so hard was it?