Charles County Public Schools (CCPS) hosted a family reunification exercise on Sunday, Oct. 13 in which school system staff worked through a mock reunification activity at the Charles County Fairgrounds. In the event an emergency affects a CCPS building, school or larger campus, students and staff would relocate to the fairgrounds, which is the official CCPS family reunification site.
Participating in the exercise on Sunday were 99 CCPS students in Grades 4-12 who volunteered their time, with most earning student service learning (SSL) volunteer hours. In addition to students, the exercise included school counselors, pupil personnel workers (PPW), and other CCPS staff, who practiced in real time processes and procedures they would follow during an emergency. First responders from local fire, police and rescue teams also participated in the activity to help simulate a live response.
The 99 students were dropped off by their parents at one of three CCPS school locations and taken by school bus to the fairgrounds. While staff set up stations to process students upon their arrival at the fairgrounds, PPWs checked in students as their parents dropped them off at either La Plata or Thomas Stone high schools, or General Smallwood Middle School. In the event of an emergency, a team of PPWs would be tasked with helping to account for students and assisting in any evacuation processes from schools or centers.
Upon arrival to the fairgrounds, buses were greeted by school counselors and PPWs, as well as other CCPS officials and staff participating in the event. Students were checked in and sorted into groups by grade level and assigned to a station. Stations were monitored by PPWs and featured games for students to play while they waited for their parent.
Snacks were provided by CCPS food and nutrition services staff. Within 30 minutes of each bus arrival, all students were checked in, accounted for and assigned to a staff member overseeing a station. Parents were then notified that their child was safe, accounted for and ready to be picked up from the reunification site.
Jason Stoddard, CCPS director of school safety and security, helped to coordinate the logistics of the event and said this was the largest scale reunification exercise in recent years for a Maryland public school system.
“Representatives from the Maryland Center for School Safety are evaluating our processes during this exercise and shared that this is one of the larger mock activities a school system in Maryland has hosted in recent years,” Stoddard said. “While this was an exercise and not an actual emergency, school staff today were able to run through an ideal framework of how we should approach what to do when an emergency occurs.”
Once parents arrived at the fairgrounds, they were required to show identification and complete paperwork before being reunited with their child. This is part of CCPS processes to ensure either a student’s parent/guardian or emergency contact on file with the school system is picking up a student.
While initially more than 145 students registered to participate, a total of 99 students and their parent/guardian were accounted for and tracked in the CCPS student information system, Synergy. Synergy has unique tools CCPS staff can use to note when a student is accounted/unaccounted for, missing or picked up by their parent during an emergency.
The goal of the exercise was for CCPS staff to have hands-on experience managing the reunification process layer of an emergency. Justine Jewell, longtime PPW with CCPS, said she and the student services team of counselors and PPWs were able to practice what they cover in drills and meetings in real time with current CCPS students. Jewell led the exercise as the incident commander and advised PPWs, counselors and staff of where to be, when and what their role would be.
“The family reunification exercise provided valuable insight into how we can continue to develop our reunification plan. My team and I were able to practice using the emergency response system to track and reunify our students and it allowed us to see what worked and what adjustments we’ll need to make moving forward,” Jewell said. “Together, we are better prepared to guide our colleagues and our students through a crisis where reunification would be necessary. We hope that we’ll never need to activate this plan, but having one and this experience to draw from will be invaluable if we ever do.”
Staff from the Maryland Center for School Safety (MCSS) will provide CCPS with notes from the evaluation of the exercise. Stoddard will lead a follow-up meeting with staff to review the activity and discuss ways the school system can improve its processes and guidelines to reunify students with families during an emergency.
“The key is to be prepared and ready for when the time comes. While this exercise was on a small scale, emergency response management takes multiple teams and departments working together to ensure students are safe and ultimately reunified with their parents,” Stoddard said.
To learn more about safety processes and procedures used by CCPS, visit our website at https://www.ccboe.com/quick-links/safety-and-security.
About CCPS
Charles County Public Schools provides 27,765 students in grades prekindergarten through 12 with an academically challenging education. Located in Southern Maryland, Charles County Public Schools has 38 schools that offer a technologically advanced, progressive and high quality education that builds character, equips for leadership and prepares students for life, careers and higher education.
The Charles County public school system does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age or disability in its programs, activities or employment practices. For inquiries, please contact Dr. Mike Blanchard, Title IX/ADA/Section 504 Coordinator (students) or Nikial M. Majors, Title IX/ADA/Section 504 Coordinator (employees/ adults), at Charles County Public Schools, Jesse L. Starkey Administration Building, P.O. Box 2770, La Plata, MD 20646; 301-932-6610/301-870-3814. For special accommodations call 301-934-7230 or TDD 1-800-735-2258 two weeks prior to the event. CCPS provides nondiscriminatory equal access to school facilities in accordance with its Use of Facilities rules to designated youth groups (including, but not limited to, the Boy Scouts).