_{Thumbnail image courtesy of the Del Norte County Office of Education}

Del Norte education officials are launching a new communications protocol officials say will present a “united and effective approach” to their messaging during emergencies.

Del Norte Unified School District and the Del Norte County Office of Education have adopted the Standard Response Protocol (SRP). Developed by the “I Love U Guys” Foundation, the platform will use shared language and procedures for communicating with students, staff, families and first responders at all of its campuses during an emergency.

Staff will begin practicing the new protocol starting Jan. 5, DNUSD spokesman Michael Hawkins said Monday. The public launch will be held Jan. 9, according to the district’s SRP web page. 

To illustrate the kind of situation education officials hope to avoid with the new protocol, Hawkins went back to a Dec. 5, 2024 tsunami evacuation warning that went to communities across the West Coast after a 7.0 earthquake struck off Cape Mendocino.

“You had people already in the safe zone and they’re getting texts to evacuate,” he said. “Joe Hamilton was running to Foursquare Church even though they’re in the safe zone. It was total mayhem because you had all this different information in all these different messages.”

Parents were driving to the elementary school near 10th and E streets in Crescent City to pull their student out of class because of the evacuation notice, Hawkins said. In some cases staff didn’t know who they were, he said.

The lack of a standard communications protocol was among the findings of a safety audit DNUSD conducted about a year ago, said Del Norte Community Day School Principal Jeff Napier. During a presentation before the Board of Trustees on Dec. 11, Napier said itinerant staff, substitutes or “people moving from site to site” wouldn’t know that the phrase, “Mr. Brown come to the office” meant to lock down the Crescent Elk Middle School campus.

The district’s safety committee convened and researched several safety protocols used nationwide, according to Napier, and settled on the “I Love U Guys” Foundation.

The Standard Response Protocol consists of the following phrases:

Hold, which means to clear the halls and stay in a room or the area until an all clear is announced.

Secure, which means to get inside and lock the doors.

Lockdown, which means to lock the classroom door, turn off the lights and move away from sight.

Evacuate, which means to leave for a specified location. 

Shelter, which according to the Standard Response Protocol is used for a tornado, hazmat or earthquake. In the case of a tsunami, students are to evacuate to higher ground, according to the response.

“Throughout all of our schools, throughout all of our offices, everybody is being trained in these responses,” Napier told trustees on Dec. 11, adding that DNUSD officials have been meeting with law enforcement and first responders who agreed to adopt the protocol. “If a police officer or the sheriff gets called to a school and comes in and says, ‘I want you to lock down because there is someone three blocks away that may have a gun,’ which has happened and we’ve gone into full lock downs for things like that and that really isn’t a lock down, that would be a secure campus. And so, now that we are implementing this we’re all going to be on the same page. We’re all going to be using the same language, which will help stop confusion and make our campuses safer for our staff and for our students.”

This isn’t just something DNUSD wants its staff and students to adopt, it’s important parents get with the protocol as well, Napier said. As a result, DNUSD will be conducting a PR campaign and will send refrigerator magnets home with its students, Napier said.

The SRP will also be sent to school site counsels and parent safety committee meetings. Some plans will also look different at different schools — Napier pointed out that a secure campus at Crescent Elk is different from a secure campus at Smith River School. 

“All of the parents are going to know exactly what all the protocols are,” Napier said. “And there are some additional things with each protocol on what you should do as a parent. For instance, if we were to lock down, do not come to the school. You will not be allowed in. If we’re in a secure campus, do not come to school. You will not be allowed in. Stay off the streets — and law enforcement will be pushing this out also — if you hear these things stay off the street, don’t clog the street, allow emergency vehicles to do their thing.”

During the meeting, Don McArthur, who represents Trustee Area 1 for DNUSD, asked about the safety protocol for a tsunami.

Napier pointed out that the only DNUSD school in the inundation zone is ‘O Me-nok Learning Center in Klamath.

“If there is a tsunami warning, everybody else stays at school,” he said. “USA (Uncharted Shores Academy) charter school, they are in the tsunami zone. They do practice their evacuation and they’re extremely efficient at getting up to Ninth Street quickly.”

According to Hawkins, if there is an emergency and there are actions the district needs parents to do to keep their kids safe, they will be notified directly by phone or via text. Though DNUSD does have a social media presence, communication via Facebook or other platforms will be supplemental, he said.

In a lot of cases, parents will be asked to be on standby until they receive instruction on how they can help or how they can be reunited with their child — something Hawkins said he sympathizes with.

“During the last emergency, I was freaking out too,” he said. “I’m an emergency worker for the district and the county office and I have kids that go to school in the county. I am nervous ‘cause I don’t know what’s happening at that school. I have to trust that the school is doing what they should be doing and following their plan.”