Page 10 - The EDGE Spring 2020

RISK MANAGEMENT

BY DALE PONDER
By Failing to Prepare, You Are Preparing to Fail

Dale Ponder

As my predecessor and mentor, Mike Wicks, used to say, “The to work to keep our facilities safe and secure – and significantly
problem with wearing too many hats is that none of them fit reduce the amount of angst regarding the topic – all through
right.” Each time someone is willing to take on additional proper preparation.
responsibilities well beyond the scope of their position, or
is assigned additional duties under the same parameters, it “One of the greatest strengths about
raises a sense of concern about how well those tasks would AASBO is its dedication to providing
be completed. The apprehension is that instead of that staff
member doing their primary responsibilities incredibly well, a networking opportunities for its
variety of tasks may be capable of being completed, but only membership. Take advantage of this
with mediocrity. However, most times a choice isn’t available.
by reaching out to others in the area of

Serving school districts in rural Arizona, we have the opportunity risk management at school districts.”
to wear multiple hats. While I am fortunate to not have as many
hats as my colleagues and peers in eastern Yuma County, or I grew up learning the rule of the 6 P’s – Proper Planning
more rural areas of the state, our resources are still quite limited Prevents Pathetically Poor Performance. Yes, I cleaned
when compared to school districts of similar size in more urban it up a little for this publication, but the message remains the
communities. same. I understand that the topic of school safety is usually

In fact, many leaders within our organization fulfill many job only reviewed annually, as required, or on the cusp of a national
duties – and some of those with odd or unusual combinations. In incident, and usually tied to a threat or incident involving an
addition to serving as the lead bean counter for the district, I also active shooter.
share in the responsibility of school safety and security. Yikes, However, emergency operation or response plans should
right?! Like all of us, safety and security of our facilities and contain information for all types of threats, and those that may
those that occupy them is priority number one. This additional be unique to your school and school district. As an example, we
responsibility is one that gives me the greatest level of anxiety do not see much snow in the desert southwest, so our plans do
as this is an area in which I did not formally study in school. not contain language regarding our response for snow. However,

and in addition to the various lethal threats, we address power
outages, extreme heat, aircrafts falling from the sky, and flash
flooding, to name a few, that affect our region and district.

In some cases, I feel that there can be multiple phases of
planning. For our district, it isn’t simply good enough to have
a plan, but we also want to test the plan. This can be achieved
through table-top exercises, drills, and large-scale exercises.
This past fall, our district conducted its third lockdown,
Fortunately, collaboration with our local first responders, evacuation, relocation and reunification exercise. This
national school security experts, and partnerships with The Trust one, unlike the previous two, was conducted for two
and the Arizona Department of Education, we have been able CONTINUED ON PAGE 12

|
10 THE EDGE SPRING 2020