How Schools Can Participate

Schools have many key roles during disasters, and when they are well prepared all West Coasters benefit. Also, by holding their earthquake drills on the same day, they inspire the participation of many other West Coasters.

The boxes below describe how schools can plan for their drill, get prepared for earthquakes, and share what they are doing with others to encourage them to also participate.

Not a school or district?

Which schools
are participating?

Chris Manuel is a teacher fellow for 2009, taking a break from his job as the Deputy Principal of Westland High School. He experienced the Arthur’s Pass earthquake in 1994 when skiing near the epicentre and became determined to find out more about our unstable land. He began his year trying to find out what Coasters already know about local earthquake hazards and concluded that they need to know more. He was inspired by the California ShakeOut Drill in 2008 and became determined to promote the same opportunity for the West Coast.

Invite your parents to register as families to participate in the ShakeOut. Use Parent/PTA meetings to spread the word.

Record an auto-dial message to parents about your school's participation in the ShakeOut. Use or modify our sample phone script (English and Spanish)

Display posters about ShakeOut in classrooms and offices on bulletin boards. Put ShakeOut flyers at your public counters. Include a flyer in paycheck envelopes, or an article in your school newsletter.

Tell everyone to watch "Preparedness Now", a compelling film that depicts what will happen in a "big one," and other videos.

Hold a meeting among your parents and staff and share personal and family preparedness information and discuss what individuals and their families can do to ShakeOut. Have everyone register while at the meeting, especially those without internet access.

Design and host preparedness events to encourage your client community to join the ShakeOut and prepare for disasters. Create alliances with other organizations to make the event a bigger success.

Today: Register your school or district to be counted in the ShakeOut Drill, get email updates, and more.

Between now and 18 September:

Meet with your School Safety Committee to plan your drill. Plan to include everyone on campus in the drill. (See this page for what those with a disability or an activity limitation can do.)

Support preparedness throughout your community by sending information home with students to help their families get prepared.

Encourage teachers to discuss earthquakes and preparedness in class.

Evaluate and increase your school's level of preparedness. Review School Preparedness Recommendations that have been created to help prepare your school for our next big quake.

18 September: Implement your drill plan along with other schools across the West Coast!

What we do now, before the earthquake, will determine what our lives will be like after. There are many things schools can do to evaluate and increase their earthquake preparedness before the ShakeOut. You can download a self-survey for your planning purposes to check your current level of preparedness and get ideas on how to better prepare your school for our next big quake.

Visit the New Zealand Ministry of Education website regarding emergency planning.

Then review School Preparedness Recommendations to identify what preparedness steps can be done soon.

Also, Get Ready Get Thru has lots of information about preparing yourself and your family for a major natural disaster.

Southern California Earthquake Center