{"id":10067,"date":"2018-09-03T20:04:54","date_gmt":"2018-09-04T00:04:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/?p=10067"},"modified":"2018-09-11T15:23:20","modified_gmt":"2018-09-11T19:23:20","slug":"how-acps-communicates-in-an-emergency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/?p=10067","title":{"rendered":"How ACPS Communicates in an Emergency"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The start of the school year is a good time to review emergency communications to:<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">remind you of how important it is that we have current and accurate contact information for you<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ensure you know how we communicate in emergency events and weather situations<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">remind you of the terminology used in emergency situations<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">request that you not call or text your child during an emergency<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><b>Can ACPS Reach You in an Emergency?<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the most important things you can do to ensure that ACPS can reach you in an emergency situation or weather event is to return the <strong>Student Information Update Form<\/strong> from your Welcome Packet to your school as soon as possible. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When you do, <\/span><b>please make sure it includes, at minimum, a current and accurate cell phone number (if you have one) and an email address<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> where you would like to receive messages from ACPS, usually during the school day. Our ability to contact you is only as good as the information available to us. Without this information, we may not be able to reach you. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can also update your child\u2019s information online. See instructions at <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.acps.k12.va.us\/infoupdate\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">www.acps.k12.va.us\/infoupdate<\/span><\/a><b>.<\/b><\/p>\n<h3><b>Make Sure That You Are Set Up to Receive Alerts<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Emergency notifications and weather alerts are first posted on the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.acps.k12.va.us\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ACPS website<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. If they pertain to a specific school, an alert is posted on that individual <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.acps.k12.va.us\/ourschools\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">school\u2019s website<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0&#8211; sometimes both the school site and the ACPS website.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Depending on the nature and timeliness of the situation, we may also send an email, text message and\/or robocall. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Notifications may also be made on or through: <\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ACPS Social Media in English: <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/acpsk12\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> | <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/facebook.com\/acpsk12\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and Spanish: <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ACPSespanol\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ACPSespanol\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ACPS Hotline: 703-866-5300<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.acps.k12.va.us\/acpstv\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ACPS-TV<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Cable channel 71 in the City of Alexandria<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">City of Alexandria eNews: <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.alexandriava.gov\/eNews\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Families need to subscribe to this email announcement list via the City of Alexandria website<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Local television and radio stations<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><b>Terminology Used in an Emergency Situation<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Last fall we introduced and began implementing new threat responses and language to be used in the event of a threat within a school building or when there is a threat outside.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><b>Lockdown &#8211; When a threat is detected INSIDE a building<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A lockdown is declared when a violent intruder is known to be <\/span><b><i>inside<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> a building. ACPS has recently expanded the options for action that staff and students may take during a lockdown. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The new procedures will empower staff and students to choose other options during a lockdown. These may include evacuating the building, barricading a door or distracting a violent intruder. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Previously, a lockdown required doors to be closed, the blinds pulled, lights turned off and students to sit facing a wall away from a window.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><b>Secure the Building \u00a0&#8211; When a threat is detected OUTSIDE a building<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Emergency guidelines regarding the procedure formerly known as \u201clock-in\u201d \u2014 when the risk is <\/span><b><i>outside<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the building \u2014 have also changed slightly. The new procedure is now referred to as \u201csecure the building.\u201d <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Staff members at the location of an incident are now able to take appropriate action to keep students safe who may be around or near their building when an emergency is called. This may include keeping a building open for a few minutes while students and staff who are in the immediate area enter. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The same procedures apply as before regarding leaving a building once it has been secured: once inside a building, those inside may not leave the building until security has deemed it safe to do so.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All other emergency procedures will remain the same.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>New Violent Intruder Drills<\/h3>\n<p>This school year all students will complete training in new drills related to violent intruder incidents. Families will receive a letters each time a new drill has been taught. There will also be parent sessions at each school where you can have questions about the new procedures answered in person.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Please review the frequently asked questions about these new <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.acps.k12.va.us\/Page\/2060\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">emergency procedures<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.acps.k12.va.us\/Page\/2117\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">weather alerts and emergency notifications<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Please Do Not Call or Text Your Child During an Emergency<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the event of an emergency, we ask that you not call or text your child. The first priority for staff is to address the threat and ensure that all students are safe. Phone calls can distract from this priority and may potentially alert an intruder to the location of a student. The ACPS Office of Communications will communicate with families as soon as possible. Staff, students and parents can sign up for ACPS alerts via the City of Alexandria eNews, as indicated at\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.acps.k12.va.us\/emergency\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">www.acps.k12.va.us\/emergency<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Thank you for helping to keep our schools and students as safe as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Take a moment to review four key pieces of information about how ACPS communications in the event of an emergency or weather situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":3822,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,10,64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-acps","category-announcements","category-safety-and-security"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-21 17:02:51","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10067"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10115,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10067\/revisions\/10115"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}