School Emergency Response Team Program (SERT).

S.E.R.T. SCHOOL EMERGENCY RESPONSE TRAINING
Michelle R. Hale Program Coordinator, Emergency Management Office, Kent, WA 

Kent, Washington is vulnerable to a variety of natural and technological hazards. School facilities, personnel and students are not exempt to the effects of these hazards. The Kent School District, Kent Fire & Life Safety and the Emergency Management Office have formed a partnership to train school personnel to prepare for and respond to these hazards.

This Preparedness Partnership began in the mid 90’s. The Kent School District understood that emergency resources would be overwhelmed following a major event and help might not be immediately available. They knew that each school site needed to have the skilled personnel to meet emergency needs following an incident.   Kent Fire & Life Safety had already been involved in schools through their emergency preparedness classes, drills and disaster month campaigns.

As the Kent schools developed their emergency plan and identified essential emergency response positions such as Incident Commander, Medical, Fire Suppression, Search and Rescue, they realized school personnel did not have training to fill these positions and requested assistance from Kent Fire & Life Safety. This request resulted in the creation of the  This four-hour program provides instruction and hands-on training in the following:

• START - Simple triage and rapid treatment – Sorting and treating injured victims.

• Fire Suppression - When and how to use extinguishers including live fire training.

• Heavy Lift/Cribbing – Working as a team to safely lift heavy items such as filing cabinets, shelves and walls.

• Light Search and Rescue - Systematic search for missing persons, hazards and damage. Effective rescuing of persons injured and in need.

• Accountability - An organized method to account for all students and personnel.

• Incident Command System – Overview of the organizational structure used by fire, law enforcement, and medical responders. Incorporated school command system into the Incident Command System.

All the SERT training is held at the Police/Fire training center and involves exercises in triaging a group of victims, lifting a 6,000 pound object, and extinguishing live fire while searching for victims in the drill tower, following a simulated earthquake. 

This four-hour training has been taught to several hundred Kent school representatives from elementary, middle and high schools, administration, transportation, security, nursing, maintenance and food service.   Also approximately 100 bus transportation representatives from the Puget Sound area and 60 school personnel at the 2001 Western Washington State School Conference received this training.

A powerpoint overview on having this program in your community was presented at the Washington State Partners in Preparedness Conference in April 2002. There are three S.E.R.T. classes scheduled this summer in Kent.

The Kent School District appreciates Kent Fire & Life Safety and Emergency Management for their enthusiasm, commitment and vision in preparing our community for a major disaster. The goal of this partnership is to train school personnel to be comfortable in an uncomfortable situation. This program has better prepared school personnel to help school children in the event of an emergency. Through this partnership, the school district purchased emergency equipment for their facilities. Several incidents have also occurred where school personnel utilized their training to extinguish fires and felt the training enhanced their confidence in responding to the February 28^th, 2001 Nisqually earthquake.

Return to   THE CONNECTION

  Click on the mail box to e-mail The Connection Editor