Guidelines to help school districts in Pennsylvania recognize potential hazards and develop a plan of community action are presented in this guidebook. The 1988 Emergency Management Services Code requires that every publicly funded state school have a disaster response plan that is exercised annually. Further, all publicly funded educational institutions and their transportation systems are to be available for emergency use. The objectives of this planning guide are to: (1) improve the safety of school facility users; (2) inform administrators of the legal requirements of the Code; (3) assist coordination among administrators and local and county emergency managers; (4) stimulate the development of an ongoing system for staff preparedness training and the evaluation of school emergency procedures (particularly district-wide emergency procedures); and (5) encourage the teaching of community safety systems as part of the curriculum. Individual sections provide information on the following topics: plan development; warning systems; floods; hazardous materials; emergency drills; emergency management organization; developing a district emergency plan; and hints for principals. Appendices include an extract of the Emergency Management Services Code, a suggested table of contents for an emergency operations plan (comprising two-thirds of this document, a sample plan, a sample county/private agency agreement, and state and local organizational charts. (LMI)