On Wednesday, our day at District 287 began with an unfolding event. Following months of planning, the Edgewood Education Center – Large Scale Emergency Exercise was launched by 9:00 a.m. The mock event was coordinated by a team of law enforcement officials and our internal team of Michelle Axell, Tom Schultz, Greg Lucas, Paul Sterlacci, Kristi Bergstrom and Linda Rees.
Volunteer staff were assigned roles within the exercise that included staff, students, parents and media. The role of the student was played by a professional youth actor who developed his character with the help of the law enforcement leaders.
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Following the Edgewoo
d Education Center – Large Scale Emergency Exercise,
Dr. Colleen Baumtrog, Executive Director, emailed the planning team with a summary of the day.
“On
behalf of the Superintendent and the Strategic Innovation Team, I want
to thank you for your leadership in the planning and execution of
today’s full scale emergency exercise at Edgewood. I understand that
you, along with your counterparts in other agencies, spent many, many
hours planning the emergency drill that took place today. While the
debriefing process has only just begun, we know that what happened at
Edgewood this morning was an extremely successful and highly realistic
emergency scenario. The learning that occurred will impact not only the
individuals involved in the exercise, but our organization for many
years to come.“
Our internal team leaders and volunteers met with law emergency personnel and Superintendent Sandy Lewandowski.
“It was a unique experience that clearly showed how planning is
critical” Superintendent Lewandowski told our volunteer employees who
participated by roles of the crisis."
"Our mental health team will most definitely be better prepared in the unlikely event that we might have a similar crisis in the future," Dr. Charlene Myklebust, Executive Director, said when talking with staff after the Large Scale Emergency Exercise.
One of our volunteers was Sandy Shetka, a NEC teacher.
“Playing the role as a teacher I felt so taken care of. I felt they
put all of our lives, safety into the hands of the ICS (Incident Command
System) workers and I personally didn't care how long it took, as long
as I knew that we were all being taken care of. I am so impressed with
this system in place. I really had a sense of what it would be like in
the unseen event of a real emergency. Wow.“
As the Principal and Incident Commander, Renee Soule Chapman
is reflecting on the events. “I also feel much better prepared in case
we did have a crisis at some point. This was an interesting experience
for me, and felt realistic in that I was kept 'in the dark' during the
planning stages and did not know what to expect.”
Channel 12 featured the event during their newscast. You can see the story by clicking HERE.
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