PULASKI COUNTY, Va. – School leaders in Pulaski County are learning from federal leaders about crisis management to keep their students safe.
Michael Webber with the Rural Domestic Preparedness Consortium teaches crisis classes over the country.
“What their emergency operating plan looks like, what’s going to be their protocol for the different responses to the events that could be encountered in school,” Webber said.
The class runs for eight hours, and school officials, as well as emergency teams and law enforcement, learn about incident preparedness and planning.
Webber said those in attendance learn what to do before first responders arrive and how to recover when it’s all over.
The goal is to make sure emergency teams, school leaders and law enforcement are working together, especially for rural communities.
“This is one of the best classes I ever taught in my career because school people, they don’t have that type of training or experience and working together with first responders,” Webber said. “It only makes sense, in rural areas sometimes that training is lacking.”
Pulaski County Emergency Management Director Brad Wright was pleased to see teams get supplemental training.
“It’s phenomenal for us to have this class to be brought to us from instructors from around the nation,” Wright said.
School leaders in Pulaski County are pleased as well.
“Anytime we can get information about how to keep schools safe is an opportunity to take for sure,” Rebecah Smith who is the principal at Pulaski Middle School said.