District emergency operations plan updated to emphasize prevention, training and standardized reporting under Senate Bill 68

Pete Scott presented an update on the district's comprehensive emergency operations plan (EOP) at the Feb. 10 special board meeting, telling the board the plan emphasizes prevention, preparedness, response and recovery and will be shaped by state-level expectations in Senate Bill 68.

"There's a lot of new considerations here," Scott said, describing Senate Bill 68 as an attempt to standardize emergency-process expectations across districts. He said standardization helps reduce liability and maintain compliance regardless of district size.

Scott outlined prevention measures that include the Raptor visitor-management system and physical locking mechanisms for buildings. He described the district's emphasis on on-site training for administrators and staff rather than administrative-only briefings and said the district runs frequent drills to build familiarity with alert systems.

Scott highlighted medical-preparedness steps: the district has set up cardiac emergency response teams, trains school nurses, health staff and SROs, and has implemented a traumatic-blood-loss protocol with tourniquets and Stop the Bleed training. He told the board Children's Mercy had praised the district's recent drills.

On incident management, Scott said the district is working to build clear incident-command roles in each building (principal as incident commander with designated liaison and information officers) and to standardize documentation and reporting so districts can meet the forthcoming state portal and reporting expectations.

Board members asked whether students could be included in training; Scott said training must be age-appropriate and role-specific but that older students could have some engagement depending on the exercise. Members also asked about responses to threats outside school grounds, identification and exceptions for external responders; Scott said the district coordinates closely with police and fire and that front-office staff can flag concerns and work through exceptions when emergency personnel must enter buildings.

Scott said mental-health response and recovery are central to post-incident operations and praised the district's rapid-response mental-health teams.

Ending: The board asked follow-up questions about drill frequency, background checks and the balance between visitor-screening and emergency access; Scott and board members agreed to continue refining policies and remain in coordination with outside emergency partners. No formal policy adoption occurred at the meeting.