Every year, more than 300 schools experience a school shooting. This year, leading up to the first day of school, all district staff participated in an active shooter drill training to ensure that, in an emergency, they are prepared to keep themselves and their students safe.
“Through trainings like this, we gain the ability to be prepared,” business education teacher Jesse Frailey said. “Part of our job as teachers here is to make sure that all of our students are safe, and to do that, we have to be trained in a way that’s realistic and sometimes scary. I learned that sometimes, in a situation like this, the hard decision might be the right one. We had security banging on our doors, yelling, let us in or help, we’re hurt and if we’re trying to protect a group of students, those sorts of things may not be okay to help people with. It was very realistic, and we had a lot of very rough experiences with it. Overall I think it’s a good thing, and it’s something that we should continue doing.”
According to a study by Jaclyn Schildkraut, Kathryn Grogan and Amanda Nabors of WestEd, “By one estimate, 95% of U.S. schools perform lockdown drills as part of their emergency response plans each year. Their widespread use has been one response to calls for improved safety and security in schools.”
The main focus of this training was to teach teachers and administrators to be prepared.
“Being prepared is the most important thing,” Superintendent Brad Hatch said. “One of the quotes I like the most is: ‘When you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail.’Making sure that we are prepared and looking at every scenario ahead of time and being proactive is really the most important thing that you can do to maintain safety and security.”
High school teachers took the lead in their classrooms as teachers and staff from other buildings joined them.
“I think one of the most important things is listening to direction and making sure that you practice and rehearse scenarios as they might come up,” Hatch said.
Experiences with the training differed between where staff members were in the building at the time of the training.
“We had multiple times when the simulated shooters or simulated threat actors were trying to break into the door…. I heard a lot of varied experiences from other people who were in the cafeteria and who were maybe in the hallway at that time,” Hatch said.
Students were not involved in the training.
“I think the student body as a whole will feel a lot safer within the hallways and within their classrooms because they know that the teachers are prepared for anything to happen,” junior Baylin Smith said.
A recurring theme of the training was the notion of being prepared.
“Any type of training is going to prepare you in some way, it’s like having a test that you may not be prepared for, but you’ve seen the material so you might have some ounce of preparation for it,” Choral director Brett Keith said. “I definitely think it’s a good thing and that students should feel safe or at least comfortable knowing that folks are prepared to help if a situation like that would occur.”
After the drill, there was a debriefing in the auditorium. District leaders heard input there and asked for other input to be discussed at a later meeting. Concerns heard at the discussion are faced by schools nationwide.
“I think other people and other schools need to prepare their staff that way,” Keith said.
“They should absolutely be required nationwide…I think you know what we’ve seen with all the examples that have happened. We learn from them,” Hatch said.
Hatch has plans for further trainings in the future. The district police were crucial in the planning and implementation of this drill.
“Our plan is to absolutely continue to really expand,” Hatch said.
In due time, they could become a state or even nationwide requirement.
