Crisis preparadness in educational institution in Turkey: Perception of crisis management in private schools

The crises are situations that hinder the routine functioning of the institutions and that are likely to affect negatively the corporate reputation. Each institution is likely to encounter various crises depending on the sector in which it operates. Therefore, the institutions must have their crisis management plan in order to overcome the crisis situation with minimum damage and their crisis communication strategy in order to relate this process to their stakeholders in the most accurate and positive way. The types of crisis encoutered by the schools in Turkey, the crisis management and the crisis communication strategies are treated within the context of this research. It was detected that the private schools handle the crisis management in a more effective way compared to the public schools and the research was carried out through the perspective of preparedness for the crisis and crisis management in the private schools in Turkey. Within this context, İSTEK Schools, Bahçeşehir Schools, Doğa Schools, Mektebim Schools which have schools in several cities of Turkey have been tackled. As a result of the study, it was detected that the private schools in Turkey tackle the crisis from the perspective of natural disasters, accidents, divorces of parents, acts of violence between the students. It was concluded that the private schools have crisis management plans and crisis management teams for natural disasters and that the divorces of parents and the acts of violence between the students are the responsibility of the counseling unit. Key words: crisis management, crisis communication, crisis management in private schools, crisis team