Emergency Operations Plan

The Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) details and guides how the East Lyme School District will operate during critical incidents affecting students, faculty, staff, visitors, and/or facilities.It is designed to provide guidance for personnel who discover or are notified of any emergency situation.

Critical incidents are extraordinary events that require the coordination of numerous resources to resolve.Since we have no control over when these events may occur, we must focus on a system that is predicated upon a coordinated managed response.Our managed response includes the following actions:

  • Ensuring the safety of students, faculty, staff, and visitors.
  • Protecting district facilities, property, and interests.
  • Stabilizing the critical incident when possible.
  • Providing support for responding public safety, community, and governmental agencies.
  • Communicating effectively with parents and guardians.

The EOP is based upon the nationally-recognized Incident Command System (ICS).ICS provides flexibility and adaptability to a wide variety of situations.It does this by establishing common standards in organization, procedures, communications and terminology.This system calls for the appointment of an Incident Commander (IC), a person responsible for the overall coordination of a situation and the activation of an Incident Management Team (IMT) to assist in managing the appropriate responses.The IMT serves under the direction of the IC.

The EOP recognizes the need to ensure direction and control for an incident involving multiple district sites and/or governmental agencies.When such a situation exists, a unified command structure will be used under the direction of one IC.The concept of unified command means that all agencies and organizations having responsibility and authority at an incident will contribute to the process of:

  • Determining overall response objectives
  • Selecting response strategies
  • Ensuring joint application of tactical activities
  • Maximizing the use of available resources

The challenge when faced with a critical incident is to rapidly transition from routine day-to-day operations to effective management control.Generally, emergency incidents will be managed and progress through the following steps:

  • A faculty or staff member discovers or is notified of an incident and takes appropriate immediate action. One such action is to notify a person authorized to be an IC.
  • The IC determines the level of threat and sets proper response actions into motion. The IC notifies the members of the IMT and consults with them as the situation and time permit.
  • The IC directs faculty and staff on-scene to take additional steps in line with the level of threat.
  • Staff, students and/or visitors follow the directives of the IC.
  • When other schools or public safety agencies are involved, a unified command structure is employed.

By adopting this EOP, the school district empowers the Incident Commander (IC) and Incident Management Team (IMT) to take action as appropriate to protect students, faculty, staff, visitors and facilities and equipment during all critical incidents.