Schools seek fed funds for emergency training

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Thursday, Aug. 25, 2005 | 11:14 a.m.

The Clark County School District wants its employees to be prepared to handle any large-scale emergency and is seeking $689,000 in federal grant funds to train them.

The district is applying for the funding -- for a second time -- from the federal Emergency Response and Crisis Management Grant Program, administered by the U.S. Department of Education as part of its Safe and Drug Free Schools initiatives.

The money would be used to develop training materials, including videos and online interactive tools, for key school personnel.

The district noted in its application that a federal report on the events of Sept. 11 indicated that "decisions and actions taken by average citizens prior to the arrival of any law enforcement or fire personnel, became the difference between life and death for many of the victims that day."

"In similar circumstances, an educator (classroom teacher/administrator) must be able to step-up in time of crisis, assess the situation, and make critical decisions that take children out of harm's way."

The ultimate goal is to have school site administrators and staff who are calm, composed and knowledgeable, said Diane Efthimiou, director of grants development and administration for the district.

"If a tragedy were to happen at a school, what is the scenario? Who is in charge? Who do you follow?" Efthimiou said. "We plan to study different approaches and make sure our plan of action is the very best possible."

KLVX Channel 10, for which the School District holds the broadcasting license, would be responsible for scripting the training videos, which would incorporate footage of actual emergency personnel on the job, Efthimiou said. The district would also develop an online resource database for the training materials that would be password-protected.

This is the second time the district has applied for the grant. An application in 2003 was denied.

In a written explanation of the denial, federal grant evaluators noted that applicants must demonstrate "significant need." The district satisfied that requirement in documenting its proximity to Nellis Air Force Base, Yucca Mountain, Hoover Dam along with the potential for Las Vegas to be a terrorist target, the evaluators wrote.

But the district fell short in several other areas, according to the written report, including failing to identify the person who would oversee the project's director. The application also lacked a thorough explanation of how training would be carried out at individual school sites, the report concluded.

Those deficits have been corrected in the new application, Efthimiou said.

"We've worked real hard on this for the last few years and we're hopeful we'll be successful this time around," she said.

Grant applications, particularly those for federal dollars, typically require specially trained writers to navigate a tangle of red tape.

Carlos Garcia, in an interview with the Sun shortly before he stepped down as superintendent in July, said he considered his decision to expand the size and scope of the district's grants office one of the biggest achievements of his tenure. For the 2004-05 academic year the district secured more than $94 million in federal grants, compared with $55 million for the prior year.

The federal Education Department awarded more than $30 million in grants last year to help school districts in 33 states improve their emergency response plans. The grants ranged from $55,066 for the 16-school Imperial County Office of Education in El Centro, Calif., to $929,659 for the San Juan Unified School District in Carmichael, Calif., serving 70,000 students at 78 campuses.

Jim O'Brien, emergency manager for Clark County, said he met with district staff in the early stages of the grant application to offer his suggestions and input.

The federal grant requires school districts to partner with local government. The Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition, an advisory committee, will meet Monday to discuss the district's application.

O'Brien said in his discussions with the district's school safety and crisis management staff, everyone agreed that the proposed training would focus on making appropriate responses to emergencies second nature.

"We wanted the front-line people to be able to respond instinctively rather than have to go look up the next step in a manual," O'Brien said. "If you hear a squealing of tires, you know to jump back on the curb. You don't have to think about it."

He concurred with the district's description of school employees as "first responders" who may be called on to react long before emergency personnel actually arrives to take charge.

As an example he cited the fact that hotel and casino security staffs are now trained to use automated external defibrillators to help individuals in sudden cardiac arrest.

"By the time the paramedics get there the guy (who suffered a heart attack) is up and talking," O'Brien said.

The district plans to make its training materials available to other public agencies. O'Brien said it would be a welcome addition to the public safety training already supplied by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, particularly the online tool.

"We're all so busy these days, not everyone can manage four or five hours of classroom training at once," O'Brien said. "It would be great to be able to go online, spend 15 or 30 minutes reviewing and then come back in later without missing anything."