1. Emergency Response & Crisis Management: The Important Role of Information Technology

2. Name two things that a) people never get enough of, b) are always lacking in crisis Communication Planning In today’s world, most communication takes place through Information technologies

3. Distinctions in Audience With whom are we communicating? Higher Education Staff /students /general public K-12 audience Parents / general public Staff  students Situation communicated in age-appropriate terms

4. The context… December 2004, emergency response capability assigned to me March 21, 2005 Red Lake, MN Mayor Furness, Chief Magnus, Lt. Paul Laney “Are we ready for something like that?” “I don’t know, but will find out”

5. The context… Four stages Prevention/mitigation –anti-bullying programs, School Resource Officers etc. Preparedness – Plan  equip  train Response – can your staff execute the plan! Recovery – including reunification of students and parents, counseling etc.

6. The context… Train building response teams Train leadership Expand equipment Radios and cameras Police & fire train in buildings Police train in multiple and single man entry Secret Service Threat Assessment ||: Test, evaluate, revise plan :||

7. The context… adopted by schools in Cass & Clay Counties adapted to their buildings After discussions with law enforcement and superintendents, the plan is

8. CASS COUNTY, ND Central Cass Schools Fargo Public Schools Fargo Catholic Schools Network Hope-Page Schools Kindred Public Schools Mapleton Elementary School Maple Valley Schools Northern Cass Schools Oak Grove and Grace Lutheran Schools West Fargo Public Schools CLAY COUNTY, MN Barnesville Public Schools Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton Hawley Public Schools Moorhead Public Schools Park Christian Schools Ullen-Hitterdahl Schools

9. Equipping the buildings Surveillance cameras in all buildings Currently, 270 cameras feeding DVRs Each building’s cameras available to principal All building can be viewed by six SROs and me More later…

10. Equipping the buildings Floor plans of all buildings with shut- offs, hazardous and flammable materials Set of CAD files for fire department Set of PDF files and laminated hard copy for SWAT Flashdrives on DO personnel Master fobs in every patrol car Master keys on shift commander’s ring

11. Internal communication VoIP phones set with portable switch creates portable Emergency Operations Center for District 3 sites configured in various areas of the District Governmental Emergency Telecommunications Service (GETS) card Priority service on all cell phone systems

12. Internal communication Considering emergency alert software extWARN, CampusE!ALERT etc. Multi-purpose like Microsoft Communicator Message mapping as communication tools 3/9/27 rule Threat Assessment Team Student records database + Police database Interoperability!

13. Interoperability Kenwood two-way radios Realities of analog police radios in large buildings Permanent frequency assignment programmed into police radios IT personnel trained to operate each other’s networks Surveillance camera feed Fiber buried to City of Fargo Images to SWAT van Future to MDTs Connected to RRRDispatchCenter

14. External communication Emergency Notification Network Two communication department employees from Each of the ten largest employees Employees that do not have access to mass media

15. External communication Connect-ED® of NTI Group 400,000 calls in 30 minutes Our experience all initial calls completed in 8 minutes Most of remaining time, redials and bad numbers Up to six phone numbers for each parent SMS

16. External communication Connect-ED® MP3 attached to email Nightly synchronization with our student information system Security – parsing information to multiple servers Ability to create messages for any/all subgroups Local interpretive services Not a fast process

17. Emergency Response & Crisis Management: The Important Role of Information Technology Lowell Wolff, APR Fargo Public Schools Communication & Planning WolffL@fargo.k12.nd.us WolffL@fargo.k12.nd.us