The School Committee approved the emergency response plan on Thursday.
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — From custodians to coaches McCann Technical School is embarking on a mission to get every staff member CPR and AED certified.
Earlier this year the Legislature passed a law requiring every school to have an emergency response plan. The law, known as "Michael's Law," was in response to the 2010 death of a Sutton High School football player who died on the field from cardiac arrest.
The law does not require all coaches to be trained but requires each school to have a plan in place in case of a medical emergency.
The McCann School Committee passed its first version of the plan on Thursday but Superintendent James Brosnan says it is only the beginning and that in the next two years, he hopes every staff member is trained in CPR and usage of automated external defibrillators.
"We want everybody. We want our coaches on the field. We want the custodians who are the only ones here at night trained," Brosnan said.
Being a vocational school, it has a leg up on the training with nearly half the staff already certified. The school nurse, Beth Ziemba, is qualified to teach the staff and has been continuing to grow the number of those certified.
"Not only is this a good skill in the workplace but in the world," Brosnan said. "It's common sense."
The required plan also got the staff thinking of various "what ifs," Brosnan said, and the "roots of change" have begun to take place. Brosnan said he will be ordering another AED after staff found a needed location.
The school's plan lists the locations of AEDs, trained personnel and the process for a variety of emergencies at various hours and locations of the school. The school had a short period to create a plan and in only three weeks the first draft was presented.
"We had bits and pieces and we put it in one document," Brosnan said, adding that there is a task force set up to continue improving the plan. "It requires continuous improvement... We're very much focused on that."
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