Parent Guide to Emergency Situations
What Should Parents Do In An Emergency?
RISD’s top priority during a school emergency is keeping our students and staff safe. For this reason, we ask our families to assist us in the following three ways:
- Stay Home
- Stay Informed
- Be Ready
Stay Home
We know your natural instinct as a parent or guardian during an emergency is to protect your child. But, by going to a school during an emergency, you may endanger yourself, your child and staff/safety personnel. The most important contribution you can make is to stay home and await instructions. Parents who arrive at a school during a lockdown event may not be able to enter the secured building, and their presence draws critical manpower away from protecting students.
Stay Informed
RISD is committed to providing timely and accurate information. Please realize, in emergency situations it takes time to ensure information is factual and correct, which can often be different than speculation or rumors shared by others via text or social media. During these instances, we appreciate your patience and understanding that our first job is to keep students and staff safe, followed closely by keeping parents informed with accurate, timely information.
During an emergency, RISD will provide information via the appropriate communication avenues, potentially including:
- District Website
- Text, Email and Phone Messages
- Social Media – including Twitter & Facebook
- Local News Media
Please keep all of your contact information up to date with your child’s school, especially your email address and text-enabled mobile number. This will allow communications to flow quickly and uninterrupted.
Be Ready
Depending on the nature of the emergency, specific actions may be required of parents. For instance, if you need to pick up your child, you may need to go to a specific area of the school or a different location within RISD, and you may need to bring a photo identification. Please follow the directions sent by the district or your child’s school.
Thank you for your understanding, cooperation and support as RISD works to keep students safe.