Emergency Preparedness & Support

In accordance with the Massachusetts Legislature, Section 363 of Chapter 159 of the Acts of 2000, the Bedford Public School’s Critical Response Team, under the supervision and direction of the Superintendent of Schools, and in collaboration with the Bedford Police and Fire Departments, has established a “multi-hazard evacuation plan” for each individual school. These plans are designed by building-level administration to respond to a wide variety of situations including, but not limited to, “evacuation for fires, hurricanes and other hazardous storms or disaster in which bodily injury might occur, shootings and other terrorist activities, and bomb threats.” At the start of each year and throughout the course of the academic year, these plans are reviewed and discussed at bi-monthly district-wide Critical Response Team meetings:

In addition to the Critical Response Team, each individual school houses its own building based Critical Response Team. These teams periodically meet to review and update school based plans. Each team can be comprised of multidisciplinary staff including but not limited to, school administration, guidance counselors, nurses, custodians, and teachers. The school based team ensures that each individual school is both proactive in preventing a crisis, but also able to respond in the event of an emergency. In order for schools to be prepared each school participates in a variety of practice drills each year. These drills include a wide variety of evacuation drills.