More Tips for Averting Disaster
- Develop relationships within the community. Focus especially on the health and safety organizations with which you'd need to communicate in an emergency.
- Conduct training drills periodically. Spend a weekend day ensuring that things will happen as planned.
- Inventory your infrastructure. Be sure to include photos, notes and detailed instructions.
- Partner with other schools in your state, near and far. You can develop disaster recovery plans together and help each other if one of the partner schools faces an emergency.
- Don't just think centrally. Train staff to regularly back up their own data so they have access to their most valuable information in an emergency.
- Know your priorities. What information, software, documentation and equipment are necessary? How much would it cost to rebuild in an emergency?
- Listen to your constituents. Is restoring e-mail the top priority for teachers, students and parents, or is the payroll system more important?
