Corinth School District Prioritizes Student Safety with Monthly Emergency Meetings

The Corinth School District is meeting monthly with emergency management partners to ensure a seamless response in the event of a school crisis. District and school administration, the Corinth Police Department, the Corinth Fire Department, the Alcorn Council Emergency Management Agency (EMA) and school resource officers are meeting at a different school each month to review existing crisis plans and conduct tabletop exercises. 

The meetings will be extremely valuable in the event of a crisis. “Working with our emergency management partners directly on each campus creates a level of familiarity that standard maps just can't match,” said Dr. John Barnett, superintendent of the Corinth School District. “Familiarity saves critical time when seconds matter—first responders need to physically know door locations, access points, and staging areas. Every campus in our district is unique. By walking these sites together, we are building strong, direct relationships between our school administrators, SROs, the Corinth Police Department, the Corinth Fire Department, and emergency management personnel so everyone operates from the same playbook in a crisis.”

Protecting students is always the number one priority. “The goal of these meetings is to keep children safe,” said Chief Landon Tucker, Corinth Police Department. “There is nothing more important than protecting children. Whatever we have to do on the front end, we will do.”

Information is the another priority for these monthly meetings from the emergency management perspective. “One goal is to provide as much info and to paint a real-life scenario allowing us to get to know as much about the staff as we can,” said Chief Chris Kelley, Corinth Fire Department. “There may be staff that have other skills that will be beneficial in life changing events. The more we know about each other on this level will allow us to focus on the bigger picture.”

The tabletop exercises provide an important opportunity to walk through some common crisis processes. “Tabletop simulations directly bridge the gap between school operational procedures and first-responder tactical protocols,” said Dr. Barnett. “They allow us to stress-test cross-agency communication, establish clear incident command transitions, and evaluate scenarios on a much broader scale. We hope and pray we are never faced with a crisis, but if we wait until an emergency happens to have these critical discussions, it will be too late.”

After the first meeting, Chief Tucker had multiple takeaways. “We are stronger when we work together,” said Tucker. “It’s important to pull all these agencies into one room. There is an old saying, ‘Failing to plan is planning to fail.’ By us sitting down working through different scenarios, we come out better. If you don’t have a plan, if you don’t rehearse your plan, if you don’t exercise your plan, people don’t rise to the occasion. They sink to their level of training. With us going through this and the more we do this, the better we are going to get.”

In any school emergency, communication with parents is critical. “During a crisis, parents need clear, accurate information—not rumors or panic caused by misinformation,” said Dr. Barnett. “These meetings allow us to align our response steps and ensure school officials and emergency services speak with one unified voice. By practicing our communication protocols together in advance, we ensure that accurate updates can reach families quickly and seamlessly while keeping student safety as our absolute top priority.”

The Corinth School District is grateful for emergency management partners that want to practice crisis protocols. These meetings will pay dividends in the event of any crisis.