This guidebook is designed to help principals, teachers, staff, parents, and students develop an emergency guide for their school. Besides preparing a response plan, emergency planners must identify hazards, conduct drills, and involve the school community in planning to provide care and shelter for students until they can be reunited with their parents. An effective program includes training, exercises, and classroom discussions and activities. An individual school emergency plan is necessary because: (1) an emergency or disaster could occur without warning and during school hours; (2) this event could trigger other hazards; (3) transportation routes, telephone communications, and other utility services could be disrupted; and (4) medical, fire, and rescue personnel could be severely overtaxed and unable to respond to every affected school for several hours. Individual school communities must be capable of relying on their own resources until outside help is available. Following a brief introduction, the remaining nine sections treat the emergency planning process, hazard identification, drills, immediate response care requirements, communication, postemergency shelter planning, school bus planning, and planning for bomb threats and civil disturbances. Appendices contain planning forms and worksheets, a teacher's package on drills, safety information, and information on children in disasters. (MLH)