Risk Solutions International - RSI Testifies at Connecticut School Security Task Force
RSI Testifies at Connecticut School Security Subcommittee
New York, NY. Risk Solutions International (RSI) provided testimony on Wednesday February 13 in Hartford to the Connecticut legislative Bipartisan Task Force considering school safety.
The Task Force, comprised of state senators and representatives, is part of Connecticut’s School Security Working Group on Gun Violence Prevention and Children’s Safety, which is developing a set of consensus recommendations for legislation to improve school safety in the aftermath of the Newtown shooting tragedy.
Scott Corzine, senior vice president of RSI provided the bipartisan subcommittee with public testimony reflecting the company’s experience providing emergency management assessments, planning, training and technology services to over 160 school districts, charter and pre-school systems, community colleges and universities in 23 states, including a number in Connecticut.
In his statement to subcommittee members, staff and public attends, Mr. Corzine put school safety risks into their proper context, recommending that legislation be focused on what he called a state mandate funded so that all 195 Connecticut school districts can develop all-hazards emergency plans that are aligned with federal guidance and accepted standards.
He emphasized that such plans are the state’s most promising and affordable path to enabling its schools to become holistically prepared for all risks, threats and vulnerabilities they face – not just rare incidents of deadly targeted violence. Mr. Corzine described these as “four-phases” plans – often developed as sustainable “living” websites – that enable schools to prevent incidents, mitigate the impact of those they cannot, prepare staff and students, respond most effectively when incidents occur, and to recover from them physically, operationally and emotionally.
In his most direct reference to the Newtown shooting, he suggested that, while far more common emergencies “do not bring us collectively to the sense of outrage we feel after tragedies like Newtown, I urge the subcommittee to look beyond the immediate incident – horrible as it was – to the broader picture of emergency preparedness in Connecticut schools.”
Corzine suggested that “a practical reason to approach emergency preparedness in this broader context is because public school districts have always lacked the financial resources to make schools impregnable to the rare madman. To create ‘fortress schools,’ the requirements for staff, equipment and technology are impractical and unaffordable; and few want our schools to resemble prisons.”
Instead, Corzine described why Connecticut’s most practical strategy should be to promulgate legislation that creates – at all Connecticut’s schools – the sustained capacity to manage all crisis and emergency incidents. He suggested that other states approached this goal by funding a statewide web-based emergency planning model.
Mr. Corzine’s full testimony can be viewed and heard at this link:
At the conclusion of his testimony, he took questions from subcommittee members, and has provided additional materials and contacts to its staff.
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Risk Solutions International is an operational risk management consulting and advisory firm. RSI provides public and private sector clients solutions in emergency and crisis management, business continuity, IT disaster recovery and data security.
For further information, please visit http://www.rsi-llc.com or call 877-774-1900.
Scott Corzine
