2008 Woodie Awards
Chabot's emergency plan missing in action
Faculty at a loss when asked abot Chabot's course of action in the event of a campus shooting
Natasha Walls
Issue date: 10/25/07 Section: News
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Out of 14 faculty and administrators asked the question "Do you know the emergency plan in the event of a school shooting?" All 14 said no.
Marcia Corcoran, language arts division dean, said in an interview that administrators had some training in the case of emergencies such as terrorist attacks and plane crashes but as of yet, faculty does not have the same training.
This brings up the very important question of why faculty does not have the same training.
One answer to this question is that currently there are building monitors for each division and all administrators have new radios all linked to the same wavelength for easier communication among them.
Also, each division has one or two staff that report to and are part of the Safety Committee of Chabot. Yet, Corcoran doesn't know of any current emergency plans in the event of a school shooting.
Most staff seemed relatively sure about what to do in the event of a fire or earthquake.
When asked about the emergency plan for Chabot Ken Williams, an economics instructor, had his own ideas of what to do in an emergency, whiched were based more on common sense than on the emergency plan that is supposed to be in place at the college.
Williams said, "In my view, any effective emergency plan for a shooting at school would require a change in available technology.
"Specifically there needs to be a panic button, (no phone numbers to call please), a lockable door which cannot be defeated with a gun, a backup phone in the class for several reasons, all of which create a large number of possible reactions to a weapons assault by anyone."
However, when asked about the emergency plan not regarding a school shooting he responded with, " The emergency plans we have in place relative to fire and recent historical earthquakes are sufficient."
Dale Wagoner, health, PE and athletics dean, said that although there was no current emergency plan in place for Chabot in the event of a school shooting, there are discussions going on right now for implementing one.
When asked what would happen in the event that an emergency like a shooting occurred and there were people injured, he responded by saying that it depended on the situation and how many people were hurt.
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