Members of a crisis team should consist of internal employees, as well as external community members. It is important to note that team members should have:

Decision making authority
Access to channels of communication
Emergency preparedness training

As such, team members should include superintendents, principals, heads of departments, school psychologists, transportation managers, school nurses, chief of police/fire/emergency medical services, communication directors, food personnel, school resource officers and family services managers.

Roles of Crisis Team Members

The team names below are not intended to be prescriptive, but rather descriptive. Schools and districts may name the roles as appropriate to local fit.

Crisis team chair/ critical incident response team coordinator Schedules and convenes emergency team meetings, oversees both broad and specific team functions, ensures that the required resources are available to each team member for assigned duties, and communicates with the district-level team. The team chair should be in a leadership decision-making role.

Assistant chair Assists the crisis team chair with all functions and substitutes for the chair in the chair's absence. The assistant chair should be in a leadership decision-making role.

Coordinator of counseling Develops mechanisms for ongoing training of crisis team members and other school staff and identifies and establishes liaisons with community resources for staff and student counseling. At the time of a crisis, this position determines the extent of counseling services needed, mobilizes community resources, and oversees the mental health services provided to students. The coordinator of counseling must have appropriate counseling and mental health skills and experience.

Staff notification coordinator Establishes, coordinates, and initiates the phone/text tree (direct channel of communication) when school is not in session to contact the crisis team and general school staff, including itinerant, part-time, and paraprofessional staff. The staff notification coordinator also establishes a formal communication plan to rapidly disseminate relevant information to all staff during regular school hours.

Communications coordinator Conducts all direct in-house communications, screens incoming calls, email/text and maintains a log of communications related to the crisis event. This position helps the staff notification coordinator develop a notification protocol for a crisis event that occurs during the school day.

Media coordinator/public information officer Contacts the media; prepares statements to disseminate to staff, students, parents, and the community; and maintains ongoing contact with police, emergency services, hospital representatives, and the district office to keep information current. This position handles all media requests for information and responds after coordinating a response with the media coordinator for the district-level team.

Crowd management coordinator In collaboration with local police and fire departments, this position develops and implements plans for crowd management and movement during crises, including any required evacuation plans and security measures. Crowd management plans must anticipate many scenarios, including the need to cordon off areas to preserve physical evidence or to manage increased vehicular and pedestrian traffic. Because of the possibility of actual threats to the physical safety of students, crowd management plans must provide for safe and organized movement of students in a way that minimizes the risk of harm to them under various threats, such as sniper fire.

Chief of police, fire, other emergency services These positions should be filled by a decision-making authority.

District-level crisis teamThe district-level crisis intervention team should include members of the district office, representatives of school-based teams, and district-level collaborators and consultants such as personnel from the local mental health clinic, local police station, and/or fire department.