A year has gone by since the Nickel Mines tragedy. Even though the incident took place in a private, one-room Amish schoolhouse, there are lessons that can be learned for public K-12 districts.

 

The schoolhouse sat within the Solanco School District. Since that time, the Solanco administration has shared some of their experiences during and after the tragedy, and has continued to strengthen their prevention, preparedness, response and recovery from catastrophes. From conversations with district and county leaders, we have compiled this summary of some of the lessons that administrators everywhere can take to heart.

 

The first responder community was on scene very quickly, including State Police and EMS—even though the location was relatively remote. Healing opportunities were available almost immediately. Cheri Lovre of Crisis Management Institute was on scene quickly, and the Amish leadership set the stage for healing. Solanco’s leadership understood the importance of not only responding to an emergency, but recovery from an emergency.

 

Some of the issues faced were unique to this situation, in that this was an Amish school. A helicopter was rapidly on-scene to take the injured students to nearby hospitals; however, the EMS personnel weren’t permitted to load the girls in the helicopter, since flying violated Amish beliefs. The local bishop immediately gave his approval.

 

The girls were taken to several hospitals. Because Amish children don’t carry identification and certainly not anything with a photograph, the emergency room personnel

didn’t have any way to identify the children. And because they were all of the same gender and race, about the same age and height, and wore identical clothing, it made the identification process harder.

 

What worked well for the schools through all of this, and what could have been improved?

 

Faster Communications May Have Helped

According to the Lancaster County Emergency Management Agency, there was a need for faster communications to keep the other school districts in the communications loop. In the adrenalin rush of the moment, it can be easy for facts to be mis-communicated.  Initially there were concerns that this may be a coordinated attack. Did all schools in the southern part of the county need to be locked down? Confirmation that the shooter was down would have allowed the surrounding public schools to react properly and reunify students with their families.

 

Stakeholder Meetings Early On

It was very beneficial to have a meeting the evening of the event between first responders and representatives of all the County School districts. This gave them the latest factual information and that they could exchange ideas as a group on how to handle school openings the next day.  Most schools upgraded security precautions (i.e.: lockdowns, additional P.D. patrols, online crisis management programs, etc.) It was important to maintain one clear line of communication down the chain to the school buildings, and for the school buildings to report rapidly back up the chain about their situation.

 

Media Control

The onslaught of media to this small, rural

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