Schools to distribute memo about preparedness

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Thursday, March 20, 2003 | 11 a.m.

For the more than 800 students at Heard Elementary School on Nellis Air Force Base, it was "business as usual" this morning, Principal Danny Kilgore said.

"For a lot of these kids, they're pros already at these kinds of situations," Kilgore said. "The parents are experienced at getting the assistance they need from the Air Force and we do our part to keep the school day as normal as possible."

At least 95 percent of the students at Heard come from military families either living at Nellis or in surrounding neighborhoods, Kilgore said. The remaining "civilian" students are the children of teachers, he said.

While administrators and teachers are on paying closer attention to news about the war in Iraq, there have been no changes to the daily routine, Kilgore said. Classes would be canceled if Nellis upped its security level to its highest level because that would prohibit non-essential personnel from entering the base, Kilgore said.

"As far as the Air Force is concerned our teachers aren't essential personnel," Kilgore said. "Obviously they are to us, and we can't have school without them."

Heard, like all Clark County schools, has an emergency action plan that would be followed in such a situation, Kilgore said.

To try to reassure and inform parents of the more than 258,000 students that attend classes at the 277 Clark County district schools, officials are drafting a memo about the district's preparedness, and that memo is expected to be distributed either today or tomorrow to students.

The memo explains that the federal Homeland Security alert system doesn't necessarily apply to Clark County schools, said Dave Broxterman, administrative manager of the district's facilities division.

If the federal alert status is elevated to its highest level, code red, that doesn't mean schools will be closed, Broxterman said. The alert applies to federal government agencies and offices, and each state is supposed to make its own determinations about closures, Broxterman said.

If closing schools becomes necessary the district will make television and radio announcements, Broxterman said.

"We want parents to know we're prepared in the event of an emergency," Broxterman said.

Kilgore was ordered to close the school on Sept. 11, 2001, and it remained shut for several days. Kilgore said he does not anticipate the Iraqi war will force a closure.