Berrien RESA is working with school districts and police agencies throughout Berrien County to better plan for school emergencies.
RESA Superintendent Eric Hoppstock tells us the “I Love U Guys” Foundation is helping to coordinate the effort. Hoppstock says the “I Love U Guys” Foundation works with more than 50,000 organizations around the world to help them coordinate emergency response.
“And they have been working to perfect some simple terminology that can be used with a high degree of effectiveness because if an emergency, God forbid, ever happens, you don’t have time to think through multiple pages of stuff,” Hoppstock said.
Hoppstock says representatives of just about every Berrien County school district and police agency were on hand this past week for a training session where they talked about how to coordinate in the event of a school emergency.
“The real power here is just working cooperatively so that as a county, we’re more unified.”
While school lockdown situations in Berrien County tend to be the result of hoaxes, Hoppstock says having a coordinated response is still helpful. For example, he says a district that offers CTE programs to students from other districts should be in the loop regarding emergencies at schools throughout the county so they can coordinate transportation. He adds some districts have multiple police agencies serving them, so that coordination between police is also essential.
The goal of the new partnership is to fully implement the “I Love U Guys” Standard Response Protocols by July 1. More training sessions are planned between now and then.
