Board hears plans to streamline emergency operations and tighten safety for rented facilities

District staff told the Camas School District Board at an April 8 workshop that the district is rewriting its emergency response plans into streamlined emergency operations plans and will coordinate protocols with nearby responders.

Gail, who leads the safety team, said she is updating plans first written more than a decade ago and is working with the Educational Service District (ESD) to use a standard response protocol aligned with neighboring districts. "We are working right now as a first step to come up with a new template for our emergency response plans, which will then be called emergency operations plans," Gail said, adding that the district hopes to complete the rollout by the end of summer.

Gail said the district will train principals, associate principals, secretaries and district office staff on the incident command system and run tabletop exercises so staff know their roles. She said district staff will brief Camas Fire and Camas Police Department personnel on the new protocols in advance of a public rollout.

Superintendent Dr. Anzalone warned about role confusion during incidents and urged clarity about who serves as incident commander at different sites: "The superintendent may not even want to necessarily be the incident commander," he said, explaining that the superintendent might instead serve as the public point of contact while an incident commander runs operations.

Rachel Best, field and facilities coordinator for community education, described steps the district takes when outside groups rent school facilities. She said the district moved door access to timed unlock windows for events and requires monitors to watch doors and secure facilities at the end of an event; outside groups typically pay for the monitor. "For outside events, groups that come in, we would hire a monitor to come in and monitor the facility ... and the groups are responsible for paying for that monitor to be there," Rachel said.

Board members asked about off‑hours responses, police access and how monitors are trained. Staff said police have 24/7 access when needed, the district maintains on-call contacts for after-hours events, and the district is developing simplified flip-chart guides and CrisisGo accounts to help monitors and volunteers react appropriately.

Staff did not propose formal board action at the workshop but said they will return with implementation details and a training schedule ahead of any public rollout.