Safety in schools during a natural disaster is a top priority, and numerous school facilities were damaged or destroyed during the recent tornado in Moore. Officials in Tulsa Public Schools understand the concern over safety.
“We have constant conversations with the principals, we do training for staff on different kinds of disasters,” says Tulsa Public Schools Emergency Manager Bob Roberts.
Roberts says TPS will use any information about what happened in Moore to inform its own emergency plans.
“Exactly what procedures did they follow? How were the buildings constructed? What were the criteria for where they sheltered in the building? They had five different facilities that were hit, and obviously there were some things that went very well, some things that went tragically wrong,” says Roberts.
He says that staff at Moore “may have done everything exactly right, but if there were any lessons to be learned, and anything that we can take back to look at in our plans, we’re going to do that.”
He says parents should be assured that procedures in the Tulsa schools are regularly reviewed to ensure safety.
“We make them as safe as we can,” he says. “I can assure any parent … that the safety of the kids in Tulsa Public Schools is a primary concern, and that we take this very, very seriously.”