Parkside Incident

Joe, the incident at Parkside makes the 3rd “near miss” this week in Wicomico County schools. I have not heard the rest of the story on the Parkside incident however a police response at that level is significant. I keep thinking is the county doing enough? Is Wicomico County prepared for a “Critical Incident” at one of our schools or simultaneously events at multiple schools? The CDC reports that 90% of schools in the US have an “Active Killer Event” policy in place that is “drilled”, “hot washed” and refined/improved on a regular basis “the CDC found nearly 90 percent of public schools had a written plan for responding to school shootings, and 70 percent of those schools had drilled students on the plan” . Wicomico County schools conduct fire drills on a monthly basis. History tells us there has not been a fatal fire in a US school since 1958. When fire drills are conducted in the county schools there is no use technology to determine the appropriate escape route so, month after month a potentially deadly escape route is being committed to muscle memory by both the students and the staff. Below is a recommended preparedness guide that was created by FEMA in response to the tragic events occurring in our public schools. In just the first 32 days of this year there was some type of significant “Hostile Event” with firearms in 12 US schools.

I felt compelled to send you this information because so much is at stake. One of the comments on your site was parents were in the dark. FEMA/DHS created “guidance/best practices” on ways to leverage social media to keep the public informed during a critical incident as well as mining social media “Open Source Intelligence Gathering” for clues that a significant event may be in the planning or near execution stage.

I pray that we never have a serious event in one of our schools however I worry that if we do, we will not be prepared to respond. The CDC quote come from Campus Magazine.