Emergency Preparedness
Guidance, waivers, and emergency resources to help Texas schools prepare, respond, and recover.
Essential Resources
Hurricane Support
7mÊÓƵ collaborated with the Texas School Safety Center (TxSSC) to develop a hurricane guide for superintendents or their designees. This guide provides a checklist of tasks that school systems should accomplish to meet standard protocols for hurricane/severe weather prevention, mitigation, preparedness, recovery, and response efforts. The latest version of this high-level guide can be found at the link below.
The Texas School Safety Center at Texas State University serves as a central location for school safety information and provides schools with research, training, and technical assistance to reduce youth violence and promote safety in Texas.
The Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) coordinates the state emergency management program, which is intended to ensure the state and its local governments respond to and recover from emergencies and disasters and implement plans and programs to help prevent or lessen the impact of emergencies and disasters.
The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is a national public warning system through which the President of the United States can address the public during a national emergency. The system also may be used by state and local authorities to deliver important emergency information such as AMBER alerts and weather information targeted to a specific area.
Emergency FAQs: Immediate and Post-Disaster Guidance
Find guidance to assist school systems in responding to and recovering from disasters.
-
In the event of a disaster or weather related closure, or to report damage to a facility, district staff should complete the Emergency Closure Form in Sentinel. After logging in, go to District Calendar under the LEA Toolkit on the left-hand side. The Emergency Closure Form will appear in the top-right corner of the District Calendar page.
-
If your school system must close or has low attendance due to a disaster, you may be eligible to apply for two specific waivers. Those waivers are for Missed Instructional Days and/or Low Attendance Days. You can find information related to these waivers on the State Waiver Types - Attendance page. The applications for these waivers are located in the 7mÊÓƵL Waivers application.
-
The Texas Open Meetings Act (Texas Government Code 551.045) permits emergency meetings when circumstances pose an imminent threat to public health and safety or are reasonably unforeseen. These meetings may be conducted by telephone conference (Texas Government Code 551.125) if gathering a quorum in one location is difficult. Districts should consult local counsel to confirm whether their situation qualifies for an emergency meeting.
-
Review Supporting Students During a Disaster for detailed guidance on enrollment, transportation, meals, and funding options for displaced students.