Just a few weeks into my new job as a high school principal, I pulled into the school parking lot following a central office meeting to find all of my students evacuated from the school building.  Apparently, there had been a trash can fire in the bathroom.  Classic.  This happened three weeks later, again on the morning of my regularly scheduled central office meeting.  What had started as an isolated incident was morphing into a crisis, and my credibility as a leader was increasingly on the line.   

Nobody wants a dumpster fire.  At best it’s a crisis situation that monopolizes your limited time.  At worst, it spirals into a mishandled incident that can cause injury and damage, draw negative attention, and lead to prolonged investigations and lawsuits.  The irony is that a momentary distraction or incident, if not addressed appropriately, may become an ongoing saga.  Spend too little time addressing the crisis, and your leadership will come under fire, and sometimes may even cost you your job.

Use Your Time Wisely

When a crisis hits, it can quickly take priority over whatever good work was previously planned.  Data chats are postponed.  Classroom walkthroughs are cancelled.  A crisis takes us away from our strategic priorities while simultaneously threatening to insert anxiety, panic, and additional stress.  My advice to school leaders is to always schedule the most essential, transformative work first thing each morning.  Getting priority work done before a crisis situation has the chance to emerge is always the best strategy.  Start the day off in classrooms.  Schedule time for strategic thinking and planning early in the day.

Be Prepared

Crisis situations, while both unfortunate and distracting, are inevitable in the work of leading a school.  It pays to plan ahead and to take seriously the opportunities for practice and discussion before the crisis hits.  Know the proper protocols.  Seek out guidance and support when you have questions about how to handle different scenarios.  When the crisis hits, you’ll typically find yourself in the role of incident commander, and your poise and guidance will be essential.

We’re incredibly blessed in Santa Ana Unified to have specialized teams – police services, crisis response teams, clinical counselors, specialized maintenance crews – to assist schools and school leaders when a crisis occurs.  Not all school leaders have those types of resources just a text message away.  So, you need to know what resources you do have access to, and how to mobilize them when needed.   

Communication is Key

One of the most important elements of crisis preparation is clear and timely communication.  Even in cases where you get the immediate crisis response right, you might fumble the communication and find yourself on the defensive with parents and other stakeholders.  Ironically, just at the moment you need to get the message right is also the moment when time is short and the stakes are high.  Having communication templates at the ready that address a range of common issues and incidents can save a school leader valuable time when a crisis hits.  It’s also essential that you have an understanding of how to manage your channels of communication.  Mass e-mails, robocalls, and hard copy letters are often part of the communication strategy.  Yet many situations develop after hours, when key staff who typically handle communication distribution may have already gone home for the day.  You need backups to your communication strategies to ensure you can get the message out promptly.

Build Capacity

We say that school safety is a top priority, but the proof is in our calendars and budgets.  Are we identifying time and resources to provide meaningful planning and professional development for staff in matters of safety?  Our school board and community have clearly identified safety as a district priority.  As a result, we instituted a safety day across the school district, with instructional videos and discussion prompts as part of an effort to build our collective capacity to handle crisis situations.  We have an active risk management team and police services department that constantly push to keep issues of safety and security on the learning agenda for staff.