school

1. Organization
 The city of Columbine is a small city in
unincorporated Jefferson County, Colorado,
United States.
 The population is roughly over 25,000
 Known for the Columbine High School
Massacre.

2. The Massacre of 1999
 On April 20th, 1999 Eric Harris and Dylan
Klebold killed 12 students and a teacher, and
wounded 24 others, before taking their own
lives.
 Crisis Communications: A Casebook
Approach, 4th edition. Today, the city has
annual candle light vigils on the day of the
massacre.

3. The Massacre of 1999 (cont.)
 The city has implemented differences in
CCP’s for all schools also with changes in
crisis response.
 School and district emergency management plans
 Mental health crisis responders
 Community crisis response team
 The time line of events is that the shooters
faced years of bullying from their peers.

4. Relevant Publics
 Students, facility, parents, the community, citizens
of Colorado and citizens of the nation are all
relevant publics.
 The ones immediately and periphery affected when
this incident happened was everyone listed above. This
was a truly terrible thing that happen.
 The students and facility are immediately and periphery
affected because they were the targets of this massacre.
 The parents are immediately and periphery affected
because the idea of their children being safe at school was
crushed.

5. Relevant Publics (cont.)
 The community is immediately and peripherally affected
because they lost friends and family.
 Colorado is only peripherally affected because the rest of
the nation now has negative views toward the state.
 The rest of the U.S. is only peripherally related because
their confidence in public schools being safe is now in
question.
 The supporters and the opponents of the city of
Columbine are actually divided.
 The supporters are members of the community and the
nation who see the city doing everything it can to
comfort people during this tragedy.

6. Relevant Publics (cont.)
 Through call centers set up to give information and
counseling.
 Improvements on Crisis Communication plans and
Crisis Management plans.
 The community members and U.S. citizens
that oppose the city do it because they feel that
this could of all been prevent if teachers knew
how troubled Harris and Klebold were.
 Paid more attention to bullying and harassment.

7. Signal Detection
 There was a strong lack of signal detection.
 The warning signs were there and clear and if
they were detected, could of prevent this
massacre from happening. Such as:
 The shooters being bullied and mocked at school
for years.
 Their growing obsession with guns (more so on the
parents).

8. Signal Detection (cont.)
 The city of Columbine did have a crisis plan
set in case such an event occurred however it
failed to help during the attack due to poor
execution.
 No mock drills performed.

9. Strategy Recognition/Reasoning
 The response strategies that the city used were
centered around aiding the ones effected and
the community. Such as:
 Condolence and Regret- Both are when the
organization expresses grief or sorrow for the even
without admitting blame.
 These were done when the city sponsored candle
light vigils and offered counseling for victims
families and the community.

10. Strategy Recognition/Reasoning (cont).
 Corrective Action- This is when steps are taken to
contain a problem, repair the damage, and/or
prevent its recurrence.
 Shown when the city changed the crisis plans for all
schools and started mock trials.

11. Impact
 This crisis left serious damage on, not only,
the reputation of the city of Columbine but
public schools in general around the nation.
 Reputation/credibility- many people still feel that
public schools in Columbine are unsafe and
dangerous.
 Conducting business/fulfill mission- after the
massacre, many people moved away which means
lower school attendance.
 This effects school’s incomes which means effects
schools’ academic abilities.

12. Impact (cont.)
 Short-term Impacts- Right after the
massacre, schools were shut down in Columbine
for weeks.
 Their students fell behind the rest of the state.
 Families withdrawing their children from public
schools.
 Long-term Impacts- Clearly, the high school found
it difficult to hire teachers to work out of fear.
 Under staff schools have difficulty performing their
mission for years.
 Schools shut down permanently.

13. Impact (cont.)
 Relationship with key publics- severely weakened.
People don’t feel that the school’s are responsible
or confidant enough to protect their children.

14. Critique
 The high school should of trained their facility
on how to better spot bullying.
 Still an issue to this day all over the nation.
 Columbine High School should of practiced
their crisis plan with mock drills so both
facility and students are prepared for such
events.

15. Critique (cont.)
 Positive-
 The crisis response choices the city took were well
done.
 Candle light vigils and counseling sessions were all
sponsored by the city.
 The corrective action to make sure all schools are
much better prepared should something like this
ever happen again.

16. Critique (cont.)
 Negatives-
 The city should of fully admitted gilt and taken the
blame.
 admitting that they are at fault shows honesty and
might of helped in restoring credibility.
 The city should of done more to help the families
of the victims.
 Offering to pay for funeral arrangements, for
example.

17. Closing
This was a horrible event that took place. It is
still in the memories of the nation to this day.
Its hard to say that even if the city had the
school better prepared that their wouldn’t be
any deaths this day. All we can do is take this
event to heart for the future and pray schools
act better on ridding bullying from schools.