Chemical Management: Planning for Toxic Materials in School Laboratories and the Accidental Release of Hazardous Materials from within the School

Integrating chemical management into a comprehensive emergency operations plan (EOP), including through the creation of a Toxic Materials Annex and a Hazardous Materials Annex, helps improve a school district's or individual school's preparedness for a chemical-related incident. To ensure the annexes remain relevant and useful, districts and individual schools should practice them through emergency exercises and make revisions based on lessons learned. Additionally, districts and individual schools should review, update, and strengthen these annexes regularly. The lessons learned in this document are the reflections of one school and are based on one chemical spill. They are suggestions to consider when developing an emergency operations plan that incorporates planning for hazardous chemicals; they are not prescriptive best practices for every school or school district. The names of the school and school district have been changed to protect identities.