Students do not only work inside the Incident Command System; some help run it. The communications village posted its student roles before camp, and two of them were command roles.
Student Public Information Officers handled external communication and reported to the incident commander. Each morning they met the commander, learned what they could and could not release, and turned the Incident Action Plan into briefing material and talking points. A professional emergency services coordinator walked them through a PIO’s day before camp: early briefings, notes on what had changed overnight, clearing with the commander what the team can say, a media release, answering calls, recording the evening briefing. His advice included a folded cheat sheet with three talking points everyone sticks to, and his view that there is “no such thing as plagiarism” in emergency services: copy what works. The student PIOs ran a press briefing during the Thursday showcase.
Student Planning leads handled internal communication. Their written duties followed the Planning P: help complete resource-tracking documents before the morning tactics meeting; sit in the tactics and planning meetings; collect updates from each section; assemble the next 24 hours of the Incident Action Plan; deliver it to section heads at lunch; post printed copies on the community bulletin boards; and collect feedback at the evening hotwash. The role description called Planning “the glue of the whole incident command system.”
Safety students wrote the medical plan and the daily safety message.
Every village completed its own section of the Incident Action Plan on day one, on the assignment form, ICS 204.
The daily plan also called for student leaders from every village to shadow the planning meetings and report back. That did not happen consistently in 2026, and leadership recommends protecting it.