New York schools have coped with disasters. There was the devastating North Country ice storm in 1998 when trees fell down and shattered, tens of thousands of people lost power and four inches of ice covered the region for six days. In 2011, Hurricane Irene produced heavy damage over much of New York, totaling to $296 million. The storm is ranked as one of the costliest in the history of New York, after Hurricane Agnes in 1972. Much of the damage occurred due to flooding, both from heavy rainfall in inland areas and storm surge in New York City and on Long Island. Tropical storm force winds left at least three million residents without electricity in New York and Connecticut. Ten fatalities are directly attributed to the hurricane.
Activities in schools in other states and countries remind us that man-made disasters can and do occur all too frequently. To name only a few these have included:
• Columbine, CO school shootings 1999
• Russian elementary school hostage crisis and shootings 2004
• Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, LA 2005
• Sandy Hook, CT elementary school shootings 2012
When will the next event be? Will we be ready? How can we collaborate before the next “disaster” occurs?
To help ensure that schools are ready, a ‘Mutual Aid Agreement’ was drafted to outline arrangements among school districts and BOCES in the event of an emergency.
NYSASBO reached out to attorneys in insurance companies to get opinions on liability in mutual aid arrangements. The District Superintendents did additional vetting and review. Comments were given, supportive of the importance of mutual aid agreements, and appropriate changes to the agreement were incorporated in the draft.
We recommend you review the agreement that has resulted from this process and consider adapting it to your needs. The agreement makes clear that “Mutual Aid and Sharing” means organized, supervised, coordinated, cooperative, reciprocal assistance in which personnel, equipment, and physical facilities of Participating Districts are used in preparation for, during, and in the aftermath of a disaster or emergency in another Participating District.
The agreement involves the establishment of statewide, regional and/or local systems for the coordination of actions by, and the mutual sharing of aid and services among or between, public school districts and/or BOCES. The agreement can be used to prepare for, during and in the aftermath of a disaster or emergency that would benefit Participating Districts by enabling them to share expertise and best practices beyond school district boundaries, address large scale challenges that are beyond the operational capacity of a single district or BOCES, increase operational efficiencies and insure more cost-effective use of limited human, physical and fiscal resources.
We recommend you review the mutual aid agreement template and discuss it with your school attorney, superintendent and BOCES District Superintendent. To view the mutual aid agreement, please click here.