By Allison Beatty
All next week there will be workshops preparing the East Los Angeles College faculty and staff for various emergency situations.
Emergencies range from active shooters on campus to campus-wide evacuations. This is the first time an entire week has been dedicated to promoting emergency preparedness.
“I really hope the amain message is about commitment, that’s really important to me,” Myeshia Armstrong, Vice President of Administrative Services said.
There will be a showing of a 40-minute training video on what to do in the event of a shooter on Monday in the G3 Foyer at 7 a.m.
The video is also available for email and features a certificate of completion after watching.
ELAC Staff who submit their certificate by Friday to Administrative Services in room G1-314 will get a complimentary first aid kit.
A workshop going over the campus emergency procedures at 9:00 a.m. will have emphasis on active shooters, and include instructions in the event of earthquakes or an evacuation of the campus.
An active shooter training at 10:00 a.m.will also be part of the preparednes week, provided by the Monterey Police, followed by a Q & A hosted by ELAC Sheriff’s Department. The Sheriff’s Department will also be holding emergency marshal sign-ups at 11:00 a.m.
These emergency marshals will be staff members assigned to individual floors in a building on campus.
They would be responsible for monitoring the floor and making sure that in the event of an emergency everyone is accounted for and that no one misses any announcements of possible danger.
The final event on Monday will be the Higher Education Assessment Team workshop at 3:00 p.m..
It will focus on behavioral intervention strategies such as spoting the signs of possible danger and learning how to de-escalate possible shooters.
Tuesday in the G3 Foyer there will be a second opportunity to attend the campus emergency procedures workshop at 3:00 p.m., the active shooter training and Q & A at 4:00 p.m. and sign-ups for emergency marshals at 5:00 p.m.
Wednesday in the main quad there will be another opportunity to sign up as an emergency marshal, along with ongoing demonstrations of fire extinguishers and the newly implemented Evac-u-chair, which ELAC President Marvin Martinez will be participating in along with the Monterey Park police department.
The Evac-u-chair is something to assist in evacuating people in wheelchairs in the event of the elevators malfunctioning during an emergency.
Wednesday in the G3 Foyer will be dedicated to campus emergency procedures at noon and holding the active shooter training at 1:00 p.m.
Thursday in the G7-106 they will be holding the H.E.A.T. behavioral intervention strategies workshop at noon.
Friday in the G3 Foyer there will be a CPR/AED Certification workshop from 9:00 a.m. to noon.
Participating in the workshop requires registration before Friday.
To register, contact the ELAC sheriff’s department at elacsheriff@elac.edu.
This is the only workshop that requires pre-registration, all others are available for any student or staff member in attendance.
This, like the other workshops going on throughout the week, will focus on preparing the faculty and staff of ELAC as well as students.
There are 15-20 spots available for student workers to participate in the workshop.
The CPR certification given for participation will be valid for two years.
“As we evolve, and maybe for the spring, working with ASU, we could have more events for students,” said Armstrong.
It is anticipated that in the upcoming Fall semester there will be another week dedicated to preparing staff for possible emergencies on campus, along with the usual drill coinciding with the California Shakeout earthquake drill.
It may have more events focused on making students aware of what to do in an emergency.
“We will be discussing some of our latest measures, like the key locking mechanism, which only locks from the inside,” Armstrong said.
The key locking mechanism she refers to is that new emergency lockdown button seen in various classrooms around ELAC, containing a key which locks classrooms from the inside in the event of a shooter on campus.
There are plans for a similar week of emergency workshops at the South Gate campus, but there is no set date at this time.