Active shooter drills have become as commonplace in schools across the country as fire drills. However, that is not the case in Wrangell just yet.
At the school board meeting on April 17, Devyn Johnson, a parent with two children enrolled at Evergreen Elementary School and one in Head Start, asked that the schools implement some kind of drill.
“Wrangell has high access to firearms. Mental illness is high. Depression rates are high. And substance abuse is high,” Johnson said to the board during public comments. “In my opinion, these are all the perfect storm for a tragedy to occur. Wrangell is a really wonderful town with wonderful people, but we would be foolish to pretend we’d be exempt from an active shooter to walk into our schools.”
In a later phone interview, Johnson said she has spoken with several parents and school staff members who thanked her for bringing up the concern at the board meeting.
According to a report by the National Center for Education Statistics, 96% of public schools in the U.S. have procedures in place for active shooter drills. Some schools refer to drills as lockdown drills. Wrangell is not included in those percentages, but the school district is working on a drill.
“We are in the process of defining a lockdown drill that would be used in case of a school intruder situation,” said Josh Blatchley, director of maintenance at the school district. “The lockdown drill will consist of students returning to classrooms and the doors secured. As we work through the process, the drill will include an evacuation portion and gathering locations.”
In a meeting last summer, the borough assembly and school board met to discuss steps that could be taken to “harden” schools in the case of an active shooter. Patty Gilbert, then an assembly member and now mayor, remarked in that meeting that when she was a teacher, in-service training provided by the police department helped identify strengths and weaknesses in classrooms. After those trainings, she said drills would be held with the kids.
That meeting last summer spurred the district to look at things like locking certain doors and installing camera systems, buzzers or keycards, Blatchley said.
Schools Superintendent Bill Burr said training for teachers was held as recently as last year.
“Staff have received training over the years on ALICE (alert, lockdown, inform, counter, evacuate) or similar training of what to do if there is an active shooter,” he said. “This is a page in the crisis plan and a short-form card in each classroom with the lockdown plans. The crisis plan is reviewed each year at the beginning of the year at the district and the school level.”
Burr said a search to find a trainer for teachers was unsuccessful this school year, and the district has reached out to a national organization on what it would cost for training but has yet to get a response.
Johnson said a conversation with her 9-year-old son prompted her concern over safety drills. Her son told her he wouldn’t know what to do if he heard “a popping noise because guns don’t always sound like guns.”
Like many households in Wrangell, Johnson and her husband own firearms. Their children are also taught firearm safety. “Unfortunately, it’s just where we’re at (as a society). I’m sure there are families not having (the drill) conversation.”
Semi-retired psychologist John DeRuyter said in an interview the drills are a good idea, but he added that prevention has been shown to be quite effective.
“From a safety perspective, I think putting together a well-thought-through shooter drill that’s well-informed by law enforcement is a good idea,” he said. “What’s more important, from my perspective, is when we as a community witness — when we are aware of families that are struggling — rather than make them pariahs, we step in and help. We step in and support. ‘What do you need? How can we help? What’s important here?’”
Community support, DeRuyter said, has been shown to “make those shooting drills irrelevant.” He said there is a large amount of research that shows children who have supportive adults in their lives have better outcomes than those that grow up in emotionally impoverished households.
Burr said school staff watch for unknown or unexpected people in the hallways, and staff or students who “mention, write or discuss anything dealing with an unsafe situation.”
He said the statement heard and posted in airports, “’If you see something, say something,’ is very true in public education. If someone is uncomfortable or sees something unusual or not proper procedure, such as checking in at the office and getting a visitor pass, then we need to be aware and conscious of what is happening.”
There has been debate over what active shooter drills should look like, whether they include the sounds of screaming and gunfire or more subdued approaches to minimize stress.
Washington state last year approved a new law that prohibits school drills from including “live simulations of or reenactments of active shooter scenarios that are not trauma-informed and age and developmentally appropriate.”
“You can prepare your kids for a house fire by telling them where to meet and how to climb out of their windows, but you don’t have to burn the house down to show them how to escape a house fire safely,” Washington state Rep. Amy Walen said in a committee hearing on her bill.
Burr said anything that disrupts the school environment is of concern.
“There are many cases where trauma was caused by the training itself,” he said. “This is a concern that we have to be aware of. We want the staff and/or students to be aware of the situations that have become much more prevalent but not at the cost of making students and parents scared to send students to school.”
He added that’s why training has been done only with teachers in the past. “We are reviewing how to make the best drill with the least amount of stress on the student population.”
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