Just after 10:30 in the morning, as students were returning from recess, the intercom announced an "extended Code Red drill." Inside Al Seeliger Elementary School in Carson City, Nev., an emergency drill was taking place in response to a fictitious shooting in the front parking lot.

It took just over 17 minutes for staff at Al Seeliger Elementary School in Carson City, Nev., to account for all the students during an emergency lockdown drill. A cameraman filmed the event for the local news. [AFT Photo]

The well-trained staff quickly hustled their students into rooms, if they weren't already there, locked the doors, turned off the lights and moved the students to a safe spot away from the windows and doors. Teachers and PSRPs who stayed with the students checked attendance and then used color-coded cards--one in the window and one slipped under the door to the hallway--to indicate if everything was OK. Meanwhile, a group of staff "swept" the hallways, collecting the cards and checking for any stray students before delivering the cards to the "command post" in the main office.

Just 17 minutes after the drill started, staff at the command post had confirmed that all students were accounted for, and a "Code Red drill is over" announcement was made. The well-run emergency drill was conducted in conjunction with a visit to a number of Reno-area schools in January by the AFT's PSRP program and policy council (PPC). The event, which attracted extensive local media coverage and was also attended by a state senator and law enforcement officials, went smoothly largely because of the efforts of the school's head custodian. Every school district in Nevada is required to have an emergency plan in place, and custodian Bill Todarello, a member and officer of the AFT-affiliated Nevada Classified School Employees Association, has established himself as one of the state's experts on emergency planning.

At Seeliger Elementary, every parent receives an emergency planning manual, and they were also informed of the drill in advance. The AFT visitors, who participated in the drill along with the students and staff, were impressed by how smoothly it went and discussed how it might serve as a model for other schools and districts.

The emergency drill was just one stop in a day-long series of site visits by the PPC. Each winter, the council meets outside of Washington, D.C., and visits local schools and/or colleges to observe programs in which AFT members work. Other stops included sprawling Carson City High School, which boasts an impressive array of state-of-the-art computer labs and equipment and an equally high-tech security system; the Carson City bus barn, where mechanics showed off their spotless facility; a lunch stop with the Virginia City school superintendent and a number of classified staff who work in the small mountainous district; and a final stop in Reno to observe a Success for All program at Anderson Elementary School, which uses well-trained paraprofessionals to tutor students in reading.