WILMINGTON, MA — Superintendent Dr. Glenn Brand discussed the school district’s evacuation and reunification procedures at last week’s School Committee Meeting, a month after the Woburn Street Elementary School was faced with an emergency situation after a boiler fan failed leading to smoke being pushed into the building. Students were safely evacuated and transported via school buses to Wilmington High School, where parents and guardians picked them up.
“The entire district leadership team, along with the Wilmington Police, [recently] debriefed on this experience, recognizing it represented an important learning opportunity for us all,” noted Brand. “This evacuation and reunification served as a great low-stake situation to walk through. I’m please to say we did very well. And that’s the assessment from the police as well.”
Brand wants the community to have a general sense of how an evacuation of Wilmington school will be managed should it ever be necessary in the future.
Key highlights include:
- With the exception of a need to evacuate the high school, all other school facilities will be directed to Wilmington High School as the primary evacuation site.
- Given the capacity of the high school auditorium, gymnasium, band room and the cafeteria space, it is entirely possible to evacuate multiple buildings at once and relocate to the high school.
- In the event that the high school has to be evacuated, multiple school facilities or other community spaces may be utilized to house students and staff.
- Once busses arrive at the high school, they will usually proceed to the ‘events entrance’ doors , off of Adams Street, nearest the baseball field
- Once all students are inside, the facility will be secured. Parnets/guaridans will not be allowed to enter the facility & staff will stay inside with students.
- Local emergency personnel, in concert with school & district administration, will then take control over any parent/guaridans access to their child, and will oversee the reunification process that will reunite a parent/guardian with their child.
- Depending upon time of day, provisions may be provided for feeding students and staff. (In the Woburn Street incident, many students had not yet eaten lunch before they were forced to evacuated, but they were fed at the high school.)
- This will be a highly coordinated process that requires precision to ONLY sign out a student to his/her parent/guardian.
- The school continues to hold supervisory authority over students until such time as they are picked up by their parent/guardian.
- The only exception to the need for reunification would be if a decision were made to send students home on their regular bus route.
“The design of the high school is optimal,” noted Brand. “Students from the Boutwell, West, and Middle School, for example, could all be housed at the high school in the case of an emergency.”
In response to a question from School Committee member David Ragsdale, Assistant Superintendent Paul Ruggiero noted one of the district’s Safety Committee’s new top priorities is formally identifying a location if the high school ever needed to be evacuated.
“[Identifying a site to evacuate high school students to] has been a point of some discussion for some time now,” added Brand. “We always have the option to segment by grade and send each to different school buildings. But nothing has been formalized yet.”
Brand also offered several important communication tips:
- The district-wide communication systems are effective means that provide the ability to push out calls, emails & texts
- During an emergency situation, it will generally be the expectations that communication about the incident will come from the Superintendent’s Office and/or their designee
- When in the midst of an emergency, all staff have been asked to ensure that they stay off social media and refrain from any and all communication with friends, families or parents through any means
- Any other communication would be unofficial and only hold the potential to create more anxiety from community members.
- In the event of an evacuation, our community should expect that the high school will become the primary point for relocation and eventual parent reunification
- During an evacuation there is no need for parents/guardians to rush to the high school to pick up their child – students will be safe, supervised & closely monitored
- The Superintendent’s Office will generally oversee communication in the event of an emergency and will make every effort to push out messages as quickly as possible
- As a parent/guardian, make sure your contact information is up to date in Aspen, our student information system
“This is all great information. I’m glad the district is prepared for these things,” responded School Committee member Jesse Fennelly. “My kids both go to the Woburn Street School. To see all this as a parent, I couldn’t be happier with how the process played out… I was really impressed… The whole team did an amazing job.”
“I want to express my sincerest appreciation to the administrators at the Woburn Street, as well as the Central Office, in handling the situation in January,” said School Committee member MJ Byrnes. “It was a testament to how prepared we are for those unexpected emergencies. I also can’t say enough about the emergency response of the police and fire for keeping our students safe.”
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