22.1-279.8 - School safety audits and school crisis, emergency management, and medical emergency response plans required. - Virginia Statutes

§ 22.1-279.8. School safety audits and school crisis, emergency management,and medical emergency response plans required.

A. For the purposes of this section, unless the context requires otherwise:

"School crisis, emergency management, and medical emergency response plan"means the essential procedures, operations, and assignments required toprevent, manage, and respond to a critical event or emergency, includingnatural disasters involving fire, flood, tornadoes, or other severe weather;loss or disruption of power, water, communications or shelter; bus or otheraccidents; medical emergencies, including cardiac arrest and otherlife-threatening medical emergencies; student or staff member deaths;explosions; bomb threats; gun, knife or other weapons threats; spills orexposures to hazardous substances; the presence of unauthorized persons ortrespassers; the loss, disappearance or kidnapping of a student; hostagesituations; violence on school property or at school activities; incidentsinvolving acts of terrorism; and other incidents posing a serious threat ofharm to students, personnel, or facilities. The plan shall include aprovision that the Department of Criminal Justice Services and the VirginiaCriminal Injuries Compensation Fund shall be contacted immediately to deployassistance in the event of an emergency as defined in the emergency responseplan when there are victims as defined in § 19.2-11.01, as well as currentcontact information for both.

"School safety audit" means a written assessment of the safety conditionsin each public school to (i) identify and, if necessary, develop solutionsfor physical safety concerns, including building security issues and (ii)identify and evaluate any patterns of student safety concerns occurring onschool property or at school-sponsored events. Solutions and responses shallinclude recommendations for structural adjustments, changes in school safetyprocedures, and revisions to the school board's standards for student conduct.

B. The Virginia Center for School Safety shall develop a list of items to bereviewed and evaluated in the school safety audits required by this section.Such items shall include those incidents reported to school authoritiespursuant to § 22.1-279.3:1.

The Virginia Center for School Safety shall prescribe a standardized reportformat for school safety audits, additional reporting criteria, andprocedures for report submission, which may include instructions forelectronic submission.

Each local school board shall require all schools under its supervisorycontrol to annually conduct school safety audits as defined in this sectionand consistent with such list.

The results of such school safety audits shall be made public within 90 daysof completion. The local school board shall retain authority to withhold orlimit the release of any security plans and specific vulnerability assessmentcomponents as provided in subdivision 7 of § 2.2-3705.2. Each school shallmaintain a copy of the school safety audit, which may exclude such securityplans and vulnerability assessment components, within the office of theschool principal and shall make a copy of such report available for reviewupon written request.

Each school shall submit a copy of its school safety audit to the relevantschool division superintendent. The division superintendent shall collate andsubmit all such school safety audits, in the prescribed format and manner ofsubmission, to the Virginia Center for School Safety.

C. The school board may establish a school safety audit committee to consistof representatives of parents, teachers, local law-enforcement agencies,judicial and public safety personnel, and the community at large. The schoolsafety audit committee shall evaluate, in accordance with the directions ofthe local school board, the safety of each school and submit a plan forimproving school safety at a public meeting of the local school board.

D. Each school board shall ensure that every school that it supervises shalldevelop a written school crisis, emergency management, and medical emergencyresponse plan, consistent with the definition provided in this section. TheDepartment of Education and the Virginia Center for School Safety shallprovide technical assistance to the school divisions of the Commonwealth inthe development of the school crisis, emergency management, and medicalemergency response plans that describe the components of a medical emergencyresponse plan developed in coordination with local emergency medical servicesproviders, the training of school personnel and students to respond to alife-threatening emergency, and the equipment required for this emergencyresponse. The local school board shall annually review the written schoolcrisis, emergency management, and medical emergency response plans. The localschool board shall have the authority to withhold or limit the review of anysecurity plans and specific vulnerability assessment components as providedin subdivision 7 of § 2.2-3705.2. The local school division superintendentshall certify this review in writing to the Virginia Center on School Safetyno later than August 31 of each year.

Upon consultation with local school boards, division superintendents, theVirginia Center for School Safety, and the Coordinator of EmergencyManagement, the Board of Education shall develop, and may revise as it deemsnecessary, a model school crisis, emergency management, and medical emergencyresponse plan for the purpose of assisting the public schools in Virginia indeveloping viable, effective crisis, emergency management, and medicalemergency response plans. Such model shall set forth recommended effectiveprocedures and means by which parents can contact the relevant school orschool division regarding the location and safety of their school childrenand by which school officials may contact parents, with parental approval,during a critical event or emergency.

(1997, c. 593; 1999, cc. 475, 516, § 22.1-278.1; 2001, cc. 436, 440, 688,820, 841; 2002, cc. 166, 221, 229, 235; 2003, c. 801; 2004, c. 690; 2005, c.904; 2006, c. 43; 2007, c. 44; 2009, cc. 222, 269.)