Mt. Prospect unifies school emergency plans

It may seem simple to plan for an emergency, but it's not. For Mount Prospect firefighters, it took four years, involved dozens of agencies, and cost about $225,000.

This month, all that hard work paid off when Mount Prospect firefighters handed out bright red emergency binders to the village's 16 schools. Now, all will be on the same page when disaster strikes, making schools safer, firefighters said.

Some schools and fire departments in nearby communities have already agreed to use the system and fire officials are hoping it will serve as a model for others in the area.

A 2004 grant from the U.S. Department of Education to the fire department allowed for the study of the schools' varied emergency plans.

That paved the way for the Mount Prospect Safe Schools Committee -- a group of school and fire officials -- to come up with a simple binder system that outlines exactly what to do.

It took a long time because the committee needed to study the schools' differing plans, identify potential disasters -- 22 of them -- work with many different potential responders and come up with a completely new plan in a simple binder form.

One of the more difficult obstacles was getting schools to change, said Mount Prospect Fire Chief Michael Figolah.

"We had to convince all the schools to give up their own plans and have one plan."

Figolah said it's the first plan of its kind in the state, as far as he knows. Nowhere else has a fire department come up with such a comprehensive system in a binder format, he said.

Now, if a fire were to start at a Mount Prospect school, whether public or parochial, the school's front office administrators would grab the binder. Then, they'd flip through the 22 emergencies tabs and find the guide for what to do in a fire.

The guides give administrators step-by-step instructions. In some cases, the guides tell administrators exactly what to say over the intercom.

In addition to the tabs and guides, the binders have a section that's specific to each school.

Having a comprehensive plan in place makes schools safer, Figolah said. Firefighters will no longer waste precious time looking up each school's individual disaster plans or upon arrival have to first check with administrators about what they have already done to respond.

In addition to the binders, all of Mount Prospect's 700 classrooms will be given a smaller version -- a flip chart -- for teachers to follow. Each school room also has been given a first aid backpack.

Previously, each school had its own set of procedures and plans, which the department had to sign off on.

In some cases, it was a convoluted set of procedures that differed greatly from school to school, Figolah said.

Another obstacle to getting one comprehensive plan was getting other fire departments to sign off.

While the grant was for village schools only, most of the school districts' boundaries overlap into neighboring towns. Mount Prospect firefighters wanted those districts to have the option of adopting it district-wide. That required other local fire departments' approval

Fire departments in Arlington Heights, Buffalo Grove, Des Plaines, Prospect Heights, Wheeling, Elk Grove and Rolling Meadows have all approved the plan, allowing school districts in their jurisdictions to consider it for all their buildings.

Cost for the binders and tabs was about $5,800 for 164 copies, which was paid for by the grant, said Christina Park, Mount Prospect Fire Department's administrative analyst. The department also ordered 975 flip charts, which cost $4,300. Prospect High School received 10 binders, the public schools each got four and the private schools three. The rest are being kept as extras, she said.

Wheeling Township Elementary District 21 is considering the binders and flipcharts for all its schools, while Northwest Suburban High School District 214 has already approved both.

The cost to districts that adopt the Mount Prospect plan will be for binders, tabs and printing, Park said. The Mount Prospect Fire Department is now helping District 214 officials determine how many binders and charts it needs, she said.

District 214 spokeswoman Venetia Miles said they expect to have the binders in high schools in Arlington Heights, Buffalo Grove, Elk Grove Village and Rolling Meadows by the end of the school year.

In case of emergency

The Mount Prospect emergency plan lists 22 types of potential emergencies on its school-incident list.

• Abduction of a student

• Airplane crash

• Armed intruder

• Bomb threat

• Bus accident

• Civil demonstration/protest

• Death on school grounds

• Earthquake

• Explosion

• Fire

• Flood

• Hazardous materials release

• Hostage situation

• Natural gas leak

• Sexual assault

• Structural failure

• Suicidal behavior

• Suspicious substance/package

• Tornado

• Unknown person

• Utility loss or failure

• Winter storm

Source: Mount Prospect Fire Department

Schools involved

• Wheeling Township Elementary District 21 -- Frost Elementary

• River Trails Elementary District 26 -- Euclid Elementary, Indian Grove Elementary, River Trails Middle School

• Mount Prospect Elementary District 57 -- Lions Park Elementary, Fairview Elementary, Westbrook School for Young Learners, Lincoln Middle School

• Elk Grove Township Elementary District 59 -- Robert Frost Elementary, John Jay Elementary, Forest View Elementary, Holmes Junior High

• Northwest Suburban High School District 214 -- Prospect High School

• Parochial schools -- St. Emily, St. Raymond and St. Paul Lutheran

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Daniel White/dwhite@dailyherald.com

Lt. Phil Buffalo of the Mount Prospect Fire Department gives emergency booklets to Lincoln Park Elementary School Principal Kristine Gritzmacher.