Are You Ready to go Back to School?

Six years ago this month, two students went on a horrific killing spree at Columbine High School in Littleton, CO. They paraded through the school armed with automatic weapons, hunting down students and teachers. Twelve students and one teacher were killed and many kids were injured. At the time, this nation was shocked to its core that something so dreadful could have occurred in the one place parents assumed their children were safe. Pundits discussed the role television, movies and music played in instigating the violence, while behavioral experts talked about the ways in which bullying and the ever-present need to “fit in” could have contributed to the actions of the two teens, but at the end of the day, there was no clear explanation as to why Columbine High School fell prone to such violence.

Following the Columbine shootings, the issue of school violence came under the spotlight, as reports of shootings at schools across the country made headlines on the evening news. But the media’s coverage of school violence rapidly declined after the events of September 11, 2001, and the war on terror gripped the nation’s news outlets. However, according to Kenneth S. Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services, a private consulting group, violence in our schools is as rampant as ever. Trump claims that during 2003 and 2004, there was a jump in school-associated violent deaths. Forty-nine lives were lost, more than the two prior years combined and greater than any single school year since before the Columbine incident. If such an incident happens in your local school, are you ready?

This issue’s cover report focuses on preparing public-safety agencies to respond to emergencies in our schools. In the article, which starts on page 43, Thomas R. Loyacono, MPA, NREMT-P, CEM, chairman of the National Association of EMTs’ (NAEMT)?Pediatrics Committee, reviews the guidelines developed by NAEMT, as part of a contract with the Emergency Medical Services for Children program, for prehospital response to medical emergencies in schools. The guidelines discuss how agencies should prepare to respond to myriad school emergencies, including responding to special-needs children, as well as disaster response on campus. The key to success is communication. The guidelines recommend EMS?and school healthcare personnel should engage in pre-event planning and post-event evaluation, make certain that the requirements of children with special healthcare needs are interwoven into the response plan, use a common glossary of terms during major incidents to ensure effective communication and create an environment to facilitate a seamless transfer of health information among all related healthcare personnel.

With our children as vulnerable to violence as ever (the CDC?reports that nearly 10% of students were threatened or injured with a weapon on school property in 2003), it is essential that public-safety personnel preplan for that call that we all dread.