Director of Protective Services Tommy Vestal recently partnered with the school’s communications office and members of divisional leadership teams to facilitate training on crisis-response and crisis-communications best practices for schools.

The Aug. 1 training was offered by the North Carolina Association of Independent Schools and the Diocese of Raleigh to bring what NCAIS called the “gold standard in crisis-response training” to member schools. It was led by a facilitator from the I Love You Guys Foundation, a national nonprofit that has done extensive research into school-safety practices and developed a “highly recommended and widely used response protocol that helps schools quickly communicate critical information in the case of an emergency.”

The training comes as Vestal — a 30-year veteran of the Raleigh Police Department who is now in his third year at Ravenscroft — and Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Jennifer Davis are updating the school’s crisis-notification and emergency protocols for alignment with the Standard Response Protocol, which provides clear language and consistency of response to ensure all members of the school community understand what to do in the event of an emergency on or near campus.

“We know that how we respond during a crisis incident — whether it’s severe weather, a ruptured gas line or a law-enforcement event on or near campus — is an important part of keeping our students and employees safe and feeling cared for,” Davis said. “This training supported our ongoing efforts to make sure we’re following best practices, both in our actions on campus and in communicating what’s happening with our families.”

Joining Vestal and Davis in the training were Assistant Head of Lower School for Student Learning Erin Cole, Head of Middle School Bernardo Guzmán and Head of Upper School Aaron Sundstrom, along with Marketing, Communications and Community Engagement staff Karen Taylor, Kara Durrette and Sarah Baker.

“My main objective [in attending the workshop] was to get a greater familiarization with the SRP and to introduce the concepts to key employees,” Vestal explained. “The change in our crisis-notification and emergency protocols to adopt the SRP will require a full and robust understanding by our faculty and staff, including its history and its overall concepts. This training was the introduction for key members of our team.”

Divisional administrators said they gained a better understanding of the recommended approaches as well as why a thoughtful communications plan is so essential. “I appreciated that the training not only focused on the development of a standard crisis-response protocol but also kept students and families at the heart of emergency-response procedures in schools,” Cole said.

“A key takeaway for me was the need to have a clear and shared understanding of the language used for crisis response,” Vestal noted. “The SRP breaks down the language around five actions that clearly spell out what response is appropriate: Hold, Secure, Lockdown, Evacuation and Hazard.”

To give faculty, staff, students and any visitors on campus the opportunity to practice these protocols, Vestal holds Lockdown drills as well as fire and tornado drills regularly. Earlier today, for example. Ravenscroft held a Code Red Lockdown drill, which secures buildings — and the students and employees inside them — in the event of a threat on campus. Ravens are notified of the specific drill or emergency protocol being activated in several ways, including through the Alertus app, which faculty, staff and students may download to their phone.

As part of Lockdown drills, Davis and her team send out email notifications to families, mirroring the steps they would take to communicate in an actual emergency.

“We know we have a responsibility to keep families informed about what’s happening on campus in an emergency, even though we may not be able to provide details in the moment,” Davis explained. “It’s our hope that the practice drills and follow-up emails to families build confidence in our crisis-response plans and an understanding of what those protocols involve.”

Copies of the school’s updated Emergency Protocols guide are posted in classrooms and offices, meeting spaces and athletic facilities. Families are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the terminology and protocols associated with different kinds of campus emergencies.

“It's important to read our emergency protocols, pay attention during our drills and take them seriously in order to fully understand how you should respond to any crisis notification while on campus,” Vestal concluded. “A ‘WIN’ mentality — What’s Important Now — should be any person’s focus during a crisis. Our protocols are designed to eliminate confusion by giving a specific response to a specific type of announcement without having to worry about the details.”