School Crisis Management

Purpose: This study aims to analyze a school’s crisis management and explore emerging aspects of its response to a school crisis. Traditional linear modes of analysis often fail to address complex crisis situations. The present study applied a dynamic crisis life cycle model that draws on chaos and complexity theory to a crisis management case, and further imbued the dynamic model with core aspects emerging from the school’s crisis response to understand crisis management. Method and Analysis: The study was conducted at one Midwestern PK-12 school. A combination of case study design to guide data collection in a systemic manner and grounded theory to guide data analysis was administered. Multiple data sources were collected through semistructured interviews, focus group discussion, and review of crisis plan from members of the crisis management team and selected non–team members. Open coding, axial coding, and selective coding strategies were employed to allow for emerging themes with which a constant comparative analysis was used to compare against existing theoretical frame. Strategies for enhancing trustworthiness were discussed. Findings: Findings suggest that (a) the dynamic crisis life cycle model is useful in perceiving and addressing the school crisis and its aftereffects but it also has potential constraints in the sequential design and (b) flexibility, collaboration, and self-correcting mechanism emerge as important aspects of crisis response in strengthening existing understanding of crisis management from which a dynamic responsiveness model is developed. Discussion of the findings, implications for research and practice, and limitations of the results are provided.