Albany Unified Superintendent Offers Short Board Report on Lockdown, Emergency Procedures

Albany schools told the school board more details Tuesday night about a that raised questions in the community about district procedures during emergency events.

Stephenson said the district "can't ignore" a need to given Albany's location near the Hayward fault line and "in an urban environment."

It's not a matter of "if we will have an emergency, but when," she said in the March 15 presentation to the board. "On March 2 we had a situation that called for rather drastic measures."

Stephenson said the events of March 2 began for her at 4:42 a.m. when she received a call from Albany police saying that the family of a former MacGregor High student was concerned because he was missing, and that he "may commit violence."

The student had been dis-enrolled from the district March 1.

She received a second call from police at 6:45 a.m., with more details, including the fact that the student had taken a from his home. 

At that point, Stephenson said, she began calling other district officials, school board members and principals.

She spoke with the district's technical team to get a photograph of the student and make sure it was distributed throughout the district.

She told the principals they needed to be "on alert" given the situation.

At 9 a.m. she said she visited MacGregor and saw two police cars out front. She also visited the middle and high schools. 

"We were not in lockdown, just on alert," she said. "I was making sure all staff knew there was a  missing student, and that they had his picture."

From 10 to 11 a.m., she said, there were multiple calls between herself, the police department and MacGregor principal Alexia Ritchie.

At 11 a.m., an Albany parent told Ritchie that the student had been at her home, near Kains and Marin avenues, that morning, and had left around 10:30 a.m. Ritchie passed the information on to the Albany Police Department.

At that point, "We knew that the student was still missing. We knew that the student was in town. We knew the gun and ammunition was still missing," Stephenson said. "We didn't know the mental state of the student."

As the district neared lunchtime, knowing that many young students would be out on the blacktop, and that high school students would be free to leave given their open campus, Stephenson said she decided to take action.

She said she was "very concerned" that students would run into the dis-enrolled student either accidentally or on purpose.

The lockdown went into effect at about 11:15 a.m. Stephenson said she sent her executive committee to various Albany schools to help with the effort.

At 11:15 a.m., the police department released a notice that authorities were looking for the missing youth, and that he might be armed.

Students in the lockdown immediately started texting and calling their parents.

"We now know it's very difficult to stay ahead of communication when you have kids with cell phones," she said.

By 11:30 a.m., calls into the district office "shut down our phone system," Stephenson said. "We were unable to get out (due to) calls coming in.... At the same time we were getting calls in, I was programming the autodialer to call out."

She said police were also fielding calls, "giving different messages to parents," such that it was all right to pick children up from Albany schools. 

"I put that on the back of my envelope of things we needed to discuss" after the incident, she said.

(During a school lockdown, parents are not able to pick up children, because doors are supposed to be locked, and no one is supposed to be moving around.)

About 12:50 p.m., police informed Stephenson said they had done a thorough search of Albany and that they had not found the young man. She said she decided at that point to release the lockdown and allow schools to complete the day. 

"I programmed the autodialer again to let (parents) know the lockdown had been suspended," she said. "That overwrote the first message," which many parents did not receive.

(The boy was the following day, but did not have the weapon or ammunition, authorities said.)

Stephenson said that since then, the district has "corrected the problem" with the autodialer, so that parents should receive all messages. She said the system now will call all phone numbers on file for families, and the district is working on e-mail notification as well.

She said she also returned calls to every parent who had left a message, and has since met with the management team and the police chief to talk about what worked and what didn't.

"In the aftermath, there are a couple of things we know we need to work on," she told the board.

Stephenson said the lockdown revealed "varying degrees of understanding about what a lockdown meant" at elementary, middle and high schools.

"Our parents have never been educated on what to do on lockdown. We need to bring them in on a planning process.... and then look at the communication tools," she said.

Since district phone lines were crippled in the emergency, the district needs to look at additional communication tools, Stephenson said. She noted that she had to use her cell phone to reach the executive cabinet at locations around the city.

In addition to e-mail alerts, the district is looking into using SMS text messaging, as well as Facebook and Twitter, to get the word out during emergencies.

"We'll never be able to beat the parents (with) texting and cell phoning," she said. "Parents will always know out ahead of us."

She said many in the community turned to Albany Patch for information, "in a de facto way in lieu of our website. We need one particular person to communicate with the media," she added.

There is a "whole laundry list" of improvements to be made, including stocking emergency supplies at each site, and installing an emergency generator at the district office.

"I would have been very hard pressed to use the autodialer or any of the communication forms" if power had been lost, she said.

The district will focus on a grant writing campaign to find extra money to make these plans workable.

"You're going to be hearing from us a lot over the next 18 months as we really fine-tune procedures," Stephenson said, which will include "a huge education piece with the community and parents."

Board members agreed that communication needs to be improved, but said it was clear during the March 2 events that the superintendent .

"The community needs to understand the first priority is the safety of our students," said "I think, Superintendent, that's what you did, as limited as much as you were.... was to do everything you can to make sure students were safe."

said communication improvements would help with safety and allow parents to "be with the program and make the whole thing work even better."

said the event "showed the commitment of the whole community to safety."

Only one member of the public spoke on the matter. called the event "a great learning opportunity."

"Overall you made the right call to err on the side of caution," he said. "Teachers appreciate that at the high school."

Stephenson said she would "much rather take the heat for lack of communication and know the kids are safe."

"You have to be willing to make the decision and take the criticism" that is likely to come in the aftermath of an emergency event, she said.

"You hope for the best after you have planned, planned, and planned some more," she said.

Watch the full meeting online on KALB here.

Everybody makes mistakes ... ! If there's something in this article you think should be corrected, or if something else is amiss, give editor Emilie Raguso a call at 510-459-8325 or shoot her an e-mail at emilier@patch.com.