School districts have a ready crisis planning resource available to them under an established community partnership between county emergency managers and the federal government.
It’s called the Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools (REMS) Technical Assistance Center, administered by the U.S. Department of Education.
For example, in Northern Michigan, the Tri-County (Charlevoix, Cheboygan, Emmet) Office of Emergency Management offers to school districts in their region several different crisis planning and management services, including:
- Virtual Training — including live and archived Webinar training, PowerPoint presentations for download, as well as online courses available for self-paced, individual learning.
- Live Training — available by request for delivery on-site at your school, district, or institution of higher education.
- Technical Assistance – REMS center staff are available to respond to your direct requests for technical assistance on a variety of topics pertaining to emergency operations planning for schools, districts, and institutions of higher education.
- Emergency Management Planning Tools – Interactive emergency management planning tools include online self-assessment and evaluation tools designed to evaluate a school district’s capacity to create a high-quality emergency operations plan.
- Tool Box – It’s an online, searchable library of free, downloadable tools developed by school emergency managers in the field.
- Community of Practice – The Community of Practice (CoP) is a virtual space for representatives from schools, school districts, and their community partners, including emergency managers, to collaborate on special projects, share news and resources, discuss trends and ideas, and learn from the experiences of others in the field.
To learn more, contact your county or regional emergency management office and inquire about their participation with the Education Department’s REMS program.