Working in a head start you have to
be prepared for anything to happen within a split second. That is why I have
chosen hurricanes or tornados as my national disaster that might happen close
to my center. In the beginning of the school year we set or have a plan for
things that might happen while we are at school planning our daily schedule.
Let’s say that we are doing what we
normally do through the day, suddenly we get over the PA system that we are now
under a hurricane watch and we have to prepare and get the children to safety.
We as teachers have to get in that safety mode, and realize that our main
concern is our kids. So we prepare the children and let them know what’s about
to happen, they know the procedures because we go over them daily, we take them
in the bathroom because it has no windows, one teacher grabs the attendance
book, first aid kit, emergency contact sheet, and the bag with snacks and non
perishable foods and water. Because we don’t know how long we will in cover we
must be prepared. We do a head count of students and teachers before we go in
and we do another head count when we
make sure that all children are accounted for, we grab the cell phone and
charging portable radio with batteries.
Tornado’s we have a plan in place
we will make sure that we do a count of all the children and teachers. We will
assist the children to go in the hall way squat on their knees and cover their
head, we call it the turtle squat. On the way out of the class we will grab the
first aid kit, emergency contact sheets, attendance, medicine box with the key,
and a portable radio to keep an update
on how the tornado is and how long would we have to stay in the hallway.
We as Educators should always be
prepared when it comes down to situations like these because you will never
know when something as serious as these disasters may change the lives of our
children and families. We will try to contact all of our parents to let them
know that we are safe and we will keep informed of what we are doing and try to
encourage them to stay at home if it is bad out, and that do not try to come
out and get their children until it is safe to do so.
I'm glad I've never had to deal with a real likfe natural disaster. Living in the Pacific northwest, we don't really have any, except earth quakes and it's been a long time since we've had one. Living on the coast we could get a tsunami, but thankfully we are located right next to a hill and could get to safety in minutes if necessary. I'm glad you have gone over the routines with kids so they know what to do in case of an emergency. I like that you call the crouching posistion turtle squats, that cute. For earthquakes we use bunnies in a hole, which mean to duck under a table. The kids are really good and getting under a table super fast. Thanks for the great information.
ReplyDelete