Self-Efficacy In A Community Of Practitioners: Incorporating
The National Incident Management System’s Incident Command System In A New Jersey School’s Emergency Planning Process

In today’s society, student safety is the number one concern of school administrators. As such, the need to continuously think, practice, and grow as an educational leader charged with keeping students safe is of paramount importance. This action research aimed to increase school administrator self-efficacy in a community of practitioners during an all-hazards emergency. In this research, one suburban central New Jersey school district conducted training for its building principals (BPs) and operations managers (OMs) through a multijurisdictional simulated emergency tabletop exercise, using Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) training in the National Incident Management System and its Incident Command System (ICS). After the tabletop exercise, BPs and OMs engaged in a reflective focus group to delineate how the two training sessions impacted perceived self-efficacy during a school emergency.

Three themes emerged from collected data. The organizational structure of the ICS was unknown to the BPs and OMs in the study. Participants agreed that effective crisis communication is critical to a successful all-hazards emergency response. Finally, the researcher found that school administrators’ self-confidence in leading during an emergency is enhanced through online FEMA training and simulated emergency situations such as the one presented in this study’s tabletop exercise.