A Superintendent Shares... Emergency Plans

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A LYS Superintendent shares the following:
I had been contemplating writing about the "school toprison" pipeline. Although not unique, I have a collection of experiencesthat are not common in the field of education. I have served in the military, Iwas a law enforcement officer, and I am now a school superintendent. Given therecent tragedy and Governor Perry's wise call for schools to review theiremergency plans, I decided to delay the "school to prison" pipelinepiece and to give my perspectives on school intruder situations.
In law enforcement, these school shootings are generallyreferred to as "active shooters." The actor is not taking hostages;the actor is intent on murder and is actively carrying out that intent. Lawenforcement protocol will be to engage and stop the active shooter. If that isone officer on the scene or fifty, law enforcement will engage and stop anactive shooter. I won’t go into the details of law enforcement active shootermethods and tactics for obvious reasons.
In this nightmare situation school's usual response is to gointo "lock down" mode. Teachers will lock students into rooms and tryto remain out of sight. Going into lock down is a way to be as safe as possibleuntil the cavalry arrives. To say it another way, going into lock down is a wayto minimize casualties until law enforcement arrives and stops the activeshooter. Notice I used the
word minimize and not stop. Once a person is in your school and activelyshooting, you are almost certainly going to take casualties until someone stopsthe shooter. I see absolutely no way around that fact.
So in the end it comes down to time. Time is equated to liveslost or saved. If you are fortunate enough to have a law enforcement officer oncampus, your response time for help will likely be low and the casualtiessuffered will likely be minimal. If you are relying on off-campus help, yourresponse time will likely be longer, certainly several minutes. Going into lockdown can slow the rate of taking casualties, but the casualties are not likelyto stop until the active shooter is engaged. When law enforcement arrives, arethey going to be familiar enough with the specific building layouts to make itto the right spot? If a shooter is in the band hall, do the responding officersknow where the band hall is, or will they have to figure that out once theyarrive? That will cost you more time, and casualties.
I would encourage each of us to think of how to minimize therate of casualties and how to decrease response time at each of our campuses.Every campus is unique. If you are a large district with a police departmentyou have options. But how many school districts with their own policedepartments put an officer at each elementary campus? If you are in a ruralarea with law enforcement perhaps 10 minutes away, you may want to thinkoutside the box. Many lives can be lost in 10 minutes of active shooting. Ilearned this week that some districts authorize certain school personnel tocarry weapons on campus. In light of using all available resources, I couldmake the argument that this is a prudent decision. If you have a principal whohas a background in law enforcement, why wait for a 10-minute response when youcan have a response in a minute? Do you have a coach on campus who was in themilitary? In the days of diminishing resources and increasing needs, it may beprudent for each district to exam some of these out of the box options. I knowas a veteran of the military and law enforcement it would sicken me to waitminutes for help, help that I have been well trained to provide, knowing thatevery tick of the clock is a potential life lost.
SC ResponseI’m not an advocate for puttingmore arms on our campuses.  Thereare just too many “if’s” involved. As a gun owner, I am well aware that thesimple fact that having a gun in my house increases the risk of injury in myhouse.  The clinical logic of yourpost is compelling (a result of your training and expertise), but as you pointout you are unique in our field. In the review of our emergency and response plans I agree that we shouldexplore every prudent action to secure our campuses. However, I would postponeany decision to arm staff members until our collective raw emotions, anger andfear have been checked.   
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