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NEW ULM – ISD 88 Superintendent Sean Koster reviewed changes to NUPS crisis management plan during Thursday's study session.
One new change was the reformatting of the emergency procedure/drills packet. The packet was reordered to follow the progression of threats.
"It's actually set up so someone who might be panicked in a situation can flow through the process," Koster said.
It's important to have clarity in times of distress. Koster shared statistics that said beginning at a heart rate of 115 BPM fine motor skills diminish. At 145 BPM complex motor skills diminish, and at 175 BPM cognitive processes diminish.
Use of the term soft lockdown was removed this year to assist with clarity.
"When you make announcements, you don't want confusion in the building," Koster said.
Practice also helps improve focus during times of crisis. The school has five lockdown drills, five fire drills, and one severe weather drill every year.
Something the district is consistently working on is putting physical distance between command centers and the threat.
"We don't want to have situations where our cognitive process is diminished or we aren't having any rational decisions because we're too close to the incident," Koster said.
To aid this, the school now operates under the same threat assessment form at every building, created by the school resource officer.
Threat assessment is followed through on all threats, regardless of the nature.
"Either way you're going to take it seriously, even if you know that it's out of frustration in the moment," Koster said.
It is important to approach each threat individually. This is why communication with all members of staff is essential to responding to threats.
"Student perception can change things, we try to put everything on the table," Koster said. "Understand the whole child, understand what they're going through, and understand how they see the world."
Koster also took the time to discuss mandated reporting during the crisis management review.
"I think it's big for our families to understand that we are mandated reporters and that everybody in the district, every year, does the training," Koster said. "It's in good faith, it's a requirement of the job."
Koster wrapped up the review by addressing the need for more supervision at future homecoming events.
"Improve supervision by 50 to 60 percent and you improve every aspect of school safety," Koster said.
He said that despite clear instructions not to, children were playing football and running around, which posed risk to other attendees trying to navigate the area.
Koster suggested bringing in more faculty or school board members to help facilitate all of the people in attendance.
"We had thousands of people at homecoming and not enough supervision," Koster said. "A lot of it's not nefarious, it's just horseplay, but there are a lot of kids and a lot of things that are needed."
Another addition to the crisis management plan was the creation of a cardiac arrest response team.
"We just took our medical emergency response team and made sure they had the right training so they could also be the cardiac response team," Koster said.
He closed with a quote.
"The safest schools have the best test scores," Koster said. "Why? When people feel safe, they make better judgments."
The next school board meeting will be held Thursday, October 22.