Wed Jun 28, 2000 11:58:01 AM: Avagene Moore: Welcome to the EIIP Tech Arena! Wed Jun 28, 2000 11:58:10 AM: Avagene Moore: For the benefit of any first-timers, when you see a blue web address, you can click on it and the referenced Web page should appear in a browser window. Wed Jun 28, 2000 11:58:19 AM: Avagene Moore: After the first one, the browser window may not automatically come to the top, so you may need to bring it forward by clicking on a button at the status bar at the bottom of your screen. Then you will need to bring your chat window back to the top in the same way. Wed Jun 28, 2000 11:58:30 AM: Avagene Moore: We will start with a presentation, and then follow with a Q&A session for your questions and comments. Right before we begin the Q&A portion we will review the procedure. Wed Jun 28, 2000 11:58:39 AM: Avagene Moore: Please do NOT send direct messages to the speaker or moderator as it makes it difficult for us to follow the discussion. Wed Jun 28, 2000 11:58:48 AM: Avagene Moore: If you have any announcements about any events or projects you are working on, please hold them to the end. Wed Jun 28, 2000 11:58:59 AM: Avagene Moore: Background information for today's session may be found at http://www.emforum.org/varena/000628.htm. Please take the time to look through and read the information provided there after our session today. ... Wed Jun 28, 2000 11:59:09 AM: Avagene Moore: We are pleased to present a Tech Arena session related to school crisis planning. Our special guest today is Eric Strohl, Executive Director of PLANet, the school crisis planning and management division of Strohl Systems Group, Inc. Wed Jun 28, 2000 11:59:22 AM: Avagene Moore: Our speaker is no stranger to emergency/disaster work. Before joining Strohl Systems in 1995, he served in the United States Navy as a Search and Rescue Aircrew member where he coordinated search and rescue efforts for local fire, police and EMS for major natural disasters, aircraft crashes, and missing persons. Wed Jun 28, 2000 11:59:32 AM: Avagene Moore: Welcome Eric, and thank you for taking the time to be with us today. I turn the floor to you now to tell us about PLANet. Wed Jun 28, 2000 11:59:40 AM: Eric Strohl: Welcome everybody to today's session on PLANet, A School Crisis Plan Manager. I would like to thank Avagene and Amy for inviting me to "speak" to you today. Wed Jun 28, 2000 11:59:52 AM: Eric Strohl: What is PLANet? PLANet enables schools to build crisis management and school safety plans quickly and easily over the Internet. From acts of violence to more common incidents ... Eric Strohl: such as disruptive students, suicidal teens, missing children, natural disasters, and bomb threats - PLANet provides 35 expert-developed, best-practice, customizable response scripts that address just about anything that could disrupt a school day. Eric Strohl: PLANet is an easy-to-use, intuitive planning tool that is endorsed by and developed with the input of top trauma, law enforcement, and disaster recovery experts and is already in use by educators nationwide. Eric Strohl: Safe Schools has been a hot topic for the last few years, especially after the tragic Columbine incident, which has raised many issues regarding the preparedness of schools. Eric Strohl: Strohl Systems recognized the need for a crisis planning and management tool designed specifically for schools. Strohl Systems product development began in 1998. In addition to it's own product development team ... Eric Strohl: Strohl began working with three of the country's leading Critical Incident Stress Management, mental health, and law enforcement officials to develop PLANet. PLANet was officially released to the public on March 3, 2000. Eric Strohl: Schools have many different resources for crisis management plan information and often pull information from various sources. Although there are great resources available, here are some common plan specific issues we've found when talking with other schools: Eric Strohl: 1 - Although schools have collected this information from a variety of resources, the information is often out of date and does not contain the necessary prevention, intervention and post-vention protocols needed to respond to an incident properly. Eric Strohl: 2 - School administrators spend countless hours annually, trying to maintain and update their crisis management and safety plans using methods that require duplication of plan data and do not allow changes to be made easily and efficiently. Eric Strohl: 3 - Once crisis plans have been created, they are often shelved and forgotten about until something happens, which can lead to decreased reaction time and "shooting from the hip" in a crisis situation. Eric Strohl: 4 - Often plans are not standardized throughout the school district. When school officials have to review crisis plans, they spend hours reading binders. Eric Strohl: We have taken all these issues and others into consideration when developing PLANet, A School Crisis Plan Manager and now invite you to learn more about PLANet. Eric Strohl: With PLANet, there are no special computers, servers or software applications needed. All schools need is an Internet connection. Eric Strohl: Once they have an Internet connection, they simply login into the PLANet web-site using a unique user name and password to begin building, updating, or printing their crisis management and safety plans. Eric Strohl: Building a crisis plan with PLANet's intuitive interface is easy. http://schools.planetstrohl.com/PLANet/About/HTMLTour/sb0.htm Eric Strohl: * Within Build My Plan, schools bring together all the elements needed within a plan, such as faculty and staff, roles and responsibilities, incidents, and optional student data. Eric Strohl: * Print My Plan allows schools to print their entire plan or print a specific incident in the event of a crisis. Eric Strohl: * Update My Plan allows schools to make changes and additions to their plan quickly. Eric Strohl: * Tell Me More is just a click away and allows schools to get help with PLANet or learn more about Critical Incident Planning. Eric Strohl: Whether schools are just beginning to plan or updating their current plans, PLANet will save school administrators time and money. Eric Strohl: Crisis planning is an ongoing process, not a one-time project. Procedures change, faculty information changes, and new students arrive throughout the school year. http://www.emforum.org/varena/Strohl/Slide02.htm Eric Strohl: It is often hard for traditional, paper-based plans to track this information. PLANet's Plan Data feature puts this information at the fingertips of those who need it fast. Eric Strohl: Need to find out what students are on a given bus route at a moments notice? The reporting feature lets schools generate reports on the fly by pulling the latest information out of their database, creating reports within seconds. Eric Strohl: PLANet will also help schools standardize crisis management plans district-wide. http://schools.planetstrohl.com/PLANet/About/HTMLTour/StatPlan.htm Eric Strohl: School administrators are very busy; they do not have the time to read thoroughly and review each school's crisis plan. And depending on who wrote the plan and how it was structured, each crisis plan will be different. Eric Strohl: PLANet's Plan Status feature also enables administrators to monitor the planning progress of all schools in a district from wherever they are. Eric Strohl: Schools can also track the progress of incidents within their plan by clicking on the incident progress button. This feature allows school administrators to see when an incident was last modified. Eric Strohl: All crisis response/emergency management plans should provide a quick snapshot of plan contents. All plans produced with PLANet include a Table of Contents that lists all plan elements. http://www.emforum.org/varena/Strohl/Slide04.htm Eric Strohl: PLANet provides an incident action plan for each incident. http://www.emforum.org/varena/Strohl/Slide05.htm Eric Strohl: The incident action plan helps standardize responses by listing the name of the faculty member assigned to an incident, their specific role for each incident, and their contact information. Eric Strohl: The second part of the incident action plan is the incident script. Incident scripts are a serious of tasks related to a specific incident. To the right of every task is the name and role of the person responsible for this action item. Eric Strohl: We recommend that schools work with their local fire, police, and other emergency personnel to develop a response that best fits the school and local community. Eric Strohl: Once the school has customized the incident action plans, changes are made to the script and then incorporated into the final plan. Eric Strohl: Since the launch of PLANet for Schools on March 3, 2000, we have had an overwhelming response. Schools across the nation are already using PLANet. Eric Strohl: Our goal is to give schools access to a valuable planning tool, which reduces the time it takes to build and maintain crisis response plans. Eric Strohl: You can get further information by visiting our Web site at http://schools.planetstrohl.com and viewing the on-line program demonstration. Eric Strohl: In the meantime, I would be happy to hear your comments and respond to your questions, so I will turn it back to Avagene. Avagene Moore: Thank you for the overview and demonstration, Eric. Before we begin our interaction with the audience, may I remind you of our protocol for Q&A? ... Avagene Moore: Audience please enter a question mark (?) to indicate you wish to be recognized, go ahead and compose your comment or question, but wait for recognition before hitting the Enter key or clicking on Send. Maricopa County Ariz: ? Avagene Moore: We will take your questions in the order they are submitted to the screen. We now invite your questions/comments. Avagene Moore: Maricopa County, you are first. Please submit your question. Avagene Moore: May take them a moment to compose their question. Please input your ? if you wish to ask a question. Lynn Orstad: ? Maricopa County Ariz: The obvious question ... what is the cost? Eric Strohl: Of course there are costs associated with this product... Rodney Baden: ? Eric Strohl: Our current pricing structure is based on a per school basis and runs $2995 per school... Eric Strohl: However, we do offer district-wide pricing... Eric Strohl: which is available depending upon the size of the district. Avagene Moore: Lynn, your question, please. Lynn Orstad: pass - my question was asked. Avagene Moore: Rodney, please ask your question now. Terry Storer: ? ray pena: ? Rodney Baden: I live in tornado alley. What plans do you have for this incident? Eric Strohl: Yes, we do have an incident script for a tornado and other natural disasters as well... Amy Sebring: ? Eric Strohl: due to the nature of the information we are unable to pass this information out... Tyler Cruse: ? Eric Strohl: however we could talk in more detail in another conversation if you choose. Maricopa County Ariz: ? Avagene Moore: Terry, you are up next. Terry Storer: Is there a module that allows blueprint/floorplans to be placed in the plan ? Eric Strohl: Thank you Terry... Eric Strohl: Within PLANet, schools have the ability to add floor plans, external documents pertaining to a certain school or other information such as graphics as well. Avagene Moore: Ray, please. ray pena: It seems basically you are selling a format and a plan maintenance program. Is that a correct interpretation? Tyler Cruse: If a school district subscribes to your program will local Police, Fire, EMA, EMS and other responding agencies have access to the schools plans? Eric Strohl: There are two answers to that question... Eric Strohl: One... Eric Strohl: PLANet is a tool to help schools manage and update their crisis response plans... Eric Strohl: Two... Eric Strohl: PLANet also offers best-practice guidelines on 35 different incidents that are fully customizable to fit every schools needs Eric Strohl: Does that answer your question? ray pena: Yes. Avagene Moore: Eric, I suspect Tyler's finger slipped in sending in her question. Do you see it above? Eric Strohl: Yes, and I will answer now. Avagene Moore: Thanks. Eric Strohl: With PLANet you will have the printed plan which remains within the school and is given out to those who are part of the plan... Eric Strohl: but you also have the opportunity to view your printed plan online once it has been developed and published using PLANet... Eric Strohl: then you can decide who you want to give access to your plan online via a secure user name and password. Avagene Moore: Amy, your question, please. Amy Sebring: Eric, we have had previous sessions which noted that disaster planning on college campuses could also use improvement. Are you marketing in this sector? Avagene Moore: ? Eric Strohl: Yes, PLANet is designed to be used in all school K-12 and colleges and universities... Eric Strohl: We will be marketing to colleges and universities over the summer months. Avagene Moore: Maricopa County, please. Maricopa County Ariz: What is an incident script? Is that like an S.O.P.? Or a checklist? Terry Storer: ? Eric Strohl: Incident scripts are a serious of tasks related to a specific incident.... Eric Strohl: that gives a detailed step by step response to follow in the event of a crisis. Avagene Moore: How much time is required on average to learn the software? Is there a tutorial and tech support? Eric Strohl: There is a very small learning curve... Eric Strohl: PLANet was designed to be easy-to-use so school administrators would not have to spend time learning how to use another program... Eric Strohl: PLANet also comes with Live Support via the Internet and Technical Support over the phone. Avagene Moore: Terry, please, sir. Terry Storer: The Illinois Safe School project has developed an "Illinois Manual". Do you have any users that have integrated that manual into Planet ? Rob McDaniel: ? Amy Sebring: ? Eric Strohl: Currently no, however other states and schools have included their manuals into their final plan by.... Eric Strohl: simply importing them into PLANet. Avagene Moore: Rob, please. Cam King: ? Rob McDaniel: Eric, A lesson learned from all of the recent school incidents is the lack of preventative or mitigative action taken when indicators of trouble were present before the emergency, (i.e. reported threatening behavior by a student, etc). Do your incident templates include scripts for intervention , mitigation, alert or warning? Eric Strohl: Great question Rob! Eric Strohl: Yes, all of PLANet's scripts contain the necessary prevention, intervention and post-vention protocols... Eric Strohl: in use by mental health, law enforcement and other EMS personnel... Eric Strohl: For example... Eric Strohl: suicide has been a recent incident that has been occurring in many school here in PA.... Rodney Baden: ? Eric Strohl: You have to take into account things like anniversary dates and the post-traumatic stress that occur to other children affected by the suicide... Eric Strohl: PLANet's scripts do just that. Avagene Moore: Amy, your question, please. Amy Sebring: What are you using for "live support via the Internet" Eric? David Crews: ? Eric Strohl: The live support piece uses a similar interface we are using for this forum today. Avagene Moore: Cam, your question. Cam King: Could you expand on the Tech Services? Does this mean they would be available during the disaster to provide timely advice not in the programme? Eric Strohl: We do provide a hot-line through one of our experts .... Amy Sebring: ? Eric Strohl: who would help schools and guide them through a crisis... Eric Strohl: and it is also included in the subscription price at no additional charge. Avagene Moore: Rodney, you are next, sir. Eric Strohl: There have been some great questions... Rodney Baden: How do plan on interfacing your plan with current City, County, State Emergency Management Plans? How do you plan on marketing Planet in our local Waco, Texas area? Eric Strohl: Well, it's up to the schools to decide what they want to integrate into their plans from the city, county or state level... Eric Strohl: PLANet allows them to do that easily. As I said before users have the ability to fully customize any aspect of their plan.... Eric Strohl: Regarding marketing... Eric Strohl: we will be launching a campaign over the summer to all the school districts across the nation. Avagene Moore: David Crews, your question, please. Maricopa County Ariz: ? David Crews: This is a follow-up to Rob McDaniels question about mitigation. Are there guides, templates, or checklists for Risk Assessment in PLANet? Terry Storer: ? Eric Strohl: Could you expand on that questions a little further please David? David Crews: In Planning, there is usually a risk or threat assessment made which drives requirements for mitigating. Eric Strohl: Currently there are no checklist for risk assessment... Eric Strohl: However you can add your own to your plan. Avagene Moore: Amy, your turn, please. Amy Sebring: Although schools/colleges are not specifically designated in the new NFPA 1600 standard on disasters, did you incorporate the principles in this planning assistance (noting that Pat Moore from Strohl is on the Technical Committee!)? Eric Strohl: Pat? Pat Moore: Whereas NFPA 1600 is generic in nature and basically a guidelines for disaster recovery/emergency management and business continuity panning programs … Pat Moore: PLANet provides specific tasks for mitigating, preventing and managing the incident or crisis. Jim Strong: ? Jim Strong: Have the lawyers reviewed the detailed plan concept from a liability standpoint? Eric Strohl: The scripts were written to minimize the liability every school has, but it's up to the individual school to work with their own.... Eric Strohl: legal staff. Avagene Moore: Maricopa County is next. Maricopa County Ariz: Do you have a method, program, or a script for the schools to exercise their plan via PLANet? Eric Strohl: Yes, each school can use the scripts as a training mechanism to exercises their plan. Avagene Moore: Terry, next please. Terry Storer: Is there a "crisis chat" function that would allow "real time" information exchange between schools and administrative offices? Eric Strohl: Not within PLANet itself Terry... Eric Strohl: That would be a tool that would have to developed and used at the district/school level...... Eric Strohl: but I will take that suggestion back to our development team...Thank You! Avagene Moore: Michael, you had a question I believe. Please ask now. Jim Strong: ? Michael Dorn: Our agency finds that many plans do not adequately address the family reunification process, how detailed is your protocol? Eric Strohl: Yes back to Michael's question … Eric Strohl: That protocol is very important and our scripts to address the process quite thoroughly... Eric Strohl: I could review that protocol with you off-line if you prefer, since we are running out of time. Avagene Moore: Jim, your question, please. Last question for this session. Jim Strong: Have you looked at using state DEMs and local OEMs as "resources" for making this product available to our local ISDs? Eric Strohl: Yes, we are looking into that right now. Avagene Moore: We are about out of time ... Avagene Moore: Thank you very much for being with us today, Eric. We wish you success with PLANet. Audience, thank you for your presence and participation. Please stand by a moment if you can while we take care of some announcements. Avagene Moore: Amy, will you tell us what's coming up for next week, please? Amy Sebring: Thank you Avagene, and thank you Eric for sharing this information with us today. We will have a "raw" transcript up this afternoon, and a reformatted transcript next Monday which you can access via the Transcripts link on our home page under Quick Picks. Eric Strohl: Thank you everyone for your participation and comments Amy Sebring: Please note, for those of you in FEMA Region 8, Floyd Shoemaker has written to tell us there will be a Safe Schools Workshop, "Picking Up the Pieces: Responding to School Crises" on September 21-23, at the Radisson Hotel in Denver, CO. Amy Sebring: Next Wed., July 5, 12 Noon EDT, we continue the Virtual Classroom Hazards Series with Consequence Management Planning for a Terrorism Incident. Amy Sebring: Our speakers will be Rick Ranous, EQE, and Dave Wheatcraft, West Virginia Office of Emergency Services. Rick will cover the organizational structure of a terrorism incident response ... Amy Sebring: and Dave will then explain what the West Virginia Office of Emergency Services is doing to prepare for terrorism incidents and to secure DOJ funding. Please join us then ... Amy Sebring: and in the meantime, our thanks for coming today, and have a great 4th of July holiday to all //flagusa ... Amy Sebring: and a Happy Canada Day to our neighbors from the North! //flagcan Back to you Ava. Avagene Moore: Thank you Amy. If there are any announcements from the floor, please pop them in now. Avagene Moore: Love the flags! Avagene Moore: Thanks to all our participants today. We will adjourn the session for now, but you are welcome to remain for open discussion. You no longer need to use question marks.