Survival Preparedness for the Classroom

Children spend most of their day in school, where they are just as likely to experience an emergency at school as at home. Survival preparedness is a necessity in the classroom to be sure that students are safe and will be taken care of in emergencies.

The first step in achieving survival preparedness in the classroom is having a school emergency plan. This plan should include how to recognize an emergency situation, how to contact emergency response personnel, all possible exits, orderly exiting process, meeting location outside and head-count procedure after exiting. Every school emergency plan should also include emergency contacts for each student.

Once the emergency plan is completed, students need to be educated on that plan. They should understand the complete process contained in the school emergency plan. The plan should also be reviewed often with each class so that the information is fresh and any new students receive the same training as the other students.
It is important to remember that students (children) become frightened easily and cannot take care of themselves in a survival situation in the same way adults can. Teachers and other education staff must understand their role in the school emergency plan to ensure the safety of all the students and themselves.

Another key part of survival preparedness for the classroom is a classroom survival kit. These kits can be purchased online and can support up to 30 to 50 people. Such school survival kits include survival food and water, survival tools, hygiene and sanitation supplies and first aid. Each classroom should have enough survival kits to take care of the capacity of the room, not the current number of students in the class.

Review the school survival kits often to make sure nothing has spoiled or been broken. Replace any survival supplies that are no longer useable. Keep the survival kits in a safe location out of the reach of the students so they do not tamper with the kits.