After a lockdown or evacuation, schools are faced with the final responsibility of reuniting students with their parents and guardians. Developed by The “I Love U Guys” Foundation, the Standard Reunification Methd (SRM) gives school staff shared terminology, repeatable processes, and a step-by-step guide for quickly, calmly, and safely managing reunification, especially when emotions and stakes are high.
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Why Having a Standardized Reunification Method (SRM) Matters
Reunification can be chaotic and emotional, as parents, students, and staff are all operating under high levels of stress. The SRM establishes several key elements that make the process smoother and safer:
- a reliable, trauma-informed process to follow every time
- shared terminology for tasks, roles, and locations
- a throughline of accountability for student wellbeing and whereabouts
“When you’re relinquishing custody of a child during a crisis, whether that crisis be an active assailant situation or a water main break, knowing who you’ve relinquished that custody to is critical,” says Pat Hamilton, Alliance Director for The “I Love U Guys” Foundation.
Accountability goes beyond simply verifying the identity of who has picked up a student. Schools also need access to accurate hand-off records during and after the reunification process.
“Sometimes parents don’t necessarily communicate well together,” explains Hamilton. “So, maybe Dad was closer and he came and got the kids, but he didn’t tell Mom…And then Mom shows up 45 minutes later, and the kids aren’t there. Being able to go back, look at the record, and explain [what happened] is key.”
Not only does this level of accountability create a defensible record for the school, it helps minimize additional worry and confusion for parents during an already stressful and potentially traumatic experience.
The current version of the SRM clearly outlines the following three aspects of parent-student reunification.
Who Is Involved in Reunification
“What’s interesting about reunification, is that it takes a village,” says Katelyn Warnock, Senior Director of Professional Services at Raptor Technologies. “There’s a lot to the process.”
The Standard Reunification Method outlines who is involved in reunifying students to guardians and what roles they play.
School Staff
Reunification primarily runs on the efforts of school staff, from administrators and educators to school counselors and transportation staff. There are five standing roles that staff can be assigned to help carry out specific SRM functions:
- Greeter: meets parents as they arrive at the reunification site, explains the process, and hands out reunification cards
- Checker: verifies each guardian’s identification against the information on the card and matches them to the correct student
- Reunifier: retrieves the student from the assembly area and brings them to the waiting guardian
- Accountant: reconciles completed reunification cards against the school roster to confirm every student is accounted for
- Exit Director: available to answer questions and provide reassurance for students and parents as they leave the reunification site
Regardless of what kind of reunification you’re running (on-site vs. off-site, evacuation vs. shelter-in-place, etc.) or which person is performing it, the duties of each role remain consistent and map to specific tasks in the SRM process (detailed below in the step-by-step breakdown).
Law Enforcement, Emergency Services, and Other Partners
Even during emergencies without criminal activity, like a severe weather event or a gas leak evacuation, law enforcement presence is part of standard reunification. Law enforcement support can help with emergency communication, perimeter and traffic control, security, and any investigation required, including interviews with parents, staff, and students about what happened.
When necessary, emergency medical services and the fire department may also be involved in reunification, assisting with
- injury triage
- injury treatment
- transportation, to hospitals or to the reunification site
Other partners include public and mental health services and victim services. “At my previous district, we contracted with four firms and asked them to provide two counselors each to support our students, our staff, and our community in handling what could be a pretty traumatic event,” explains Jim French, Instructor/Explorer at The “I Love U Guys” Foundation. “The other part of it is victim services. Any time there is a crime against children, they’ll be dispatched and be a support through this reunification process as well.”
SRM training and simulations should include local law enforcement and all external partners to help familiarize them with the process and provide a more realistic training scenario for staff.
Community and Parents
Parents and guardians won’t be trained in the Standard Reunification Method, which is why school staff need to confidently understand the process and have clear instructions and explanations for the community.
Practicing how to stage the reunification area and how to use reunification cards or software can make things run more smoothly when parents and guardians start arriving. To keep everyone more calm, “Communication is the key,” says Pat Hamilton.
Other community elements that schools need to plan for include how to
- manage media and press representatives
- notify neighboring schools if they need to go into lockdown
- control neighborhood traffic around the school or reunification site
How to Stage the Reunification Area
When following the SRM, a secure reunification area should be broken up into at least four distinct areas. These should remain separate, with reunification staff controlling the flow of student and parent traffic between them.
The four key areas for a reunification site are
- Student assembly area: a secure place to keep students while they wait to be reunited with their guardians. This area should be out of view from where the guardians enter and verify their identities.
- Parent greeting area: an area for staff to greet parents and guardians as they arrive, help them understand the process, and provide them with a reunification information card to fill out.
- Parent check-in table: a checkpoint where staff can review the identity information presented by parents and verify it against government ID and any relevant internal or external lists.
- Parent-student reunification area: a secure area for students to be reunited with their verified guardian before leaving the premises.
It’s ideal to also stage areas for crisis counseling, law enforcement interviews, and media presence for news crews and journalists—typically across the street from the reunification site with no trespassing enforced to provide privacy for parents, students, and staff.
For off-site reunifications that require transporting students from campus to a separate, secured location, the SRM also outlines how to stage the school for transport following these four steps:
- establish school incident command with clear priorities and roles.
- evacuate classrooms to a secure assembly area.
- account for student presence and status at the secure assembly area.
- board students and staff onto buses and begin transport to the reunification site.
The Step-by-Step Reunification Process
The SRM breaks down into the following six steps:
- Step 1: Greet the incoming parents/guardians. Greeters meet parents as they arrive at the reunification site, explain the process, and distribute reunification information cards.
- Step2: Gather parent/guardian information. Parents fill out their information and self-sort into lines.
- Step 3: Verify parent/guardian ID. Checkers verify IDs against custody information for each student. For approved guardians, they then tear the card at the perforation, return the bottom half to the parent, and send the top half to the Accountant.
- Step 4: Retrieve the student from the assembly area. At the reunification area, the parent hands their card half to a Reunifier, who goes to the student assembly area to retrieve the child.
- Step 5: Reunite the student with their verified parent/guardian. The Reunifier returns the student to the parent, confirms the student feels comfortable leaving with that adult, and notes the time on the card.
- Step 6: Document accountability. The Reunifier delivers the completed card to the Accountant, who reconciles it against the roster.
Making the SRM Work for Your Schools
The SRM provides a single, shared set of vocabulary, protocols, and processes to help districts run smoother reunifications across all campuses and buildings. But the “I Love U Guys” Foundation still stresses the importance of building a system that works for your schools’ specific needs.
“The Standard Reunification Method is just a method,” says Hamilton. “It’s going to look different for different schools. If you have a high school of 4,000 students versus a high school of maybe 300, you’re going to need different resources to manage reunification. So, take what works for you.”
One way that schools can customize reunification to better meet their needs is by pairing the SRM with reunification software like Raptor Reunification®. Raptor is 100% aligned with the Standard Reunification Method providing schools with the ability to
- create designated roles and responsibilities according to the SRM
- streamline the process using software, instead of paper and pencil
- increase security by running checks against sex offender registries
- record guardian signatures at reunification for stronger accountability
- practice the SRM with the Together Reunification Exercise (T-REx)
Recommended Resource
Learn how this Michigan district reduced their reunification time by 75% with Raptor.
