Securing the School

On what she notices to be an unusually quiet Friday, during hall monitor duty, History teacher Vicki Helgesen turned and spoke to her student teacher.

“We’ve got a rivalry game tonight,” Helgesen said. “Kind of calm for such a big game.”

Minutes later, a pipe bomb exploded from behind a water fountain. Students and teachers alike evacuated into the cool winter day of 1993. No one was injured, but something had changed in the staff and in the student body. The notion of “it could never happen to us” was gone.

“School, which was always to me, and really still is, is a safe place. A haven. It just felt different [after the attack].” Helgesen said.

East has not been unaffected by school violence. Now, 20 years after the bombing, the guarantees of safety are still impossible. However, the efficiency of how East reacts to dangerous situations determines how much damage will be done.

In the past year, FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) urged schools to change their emergency plans. In response, the district reformed some of the existing procedures. The New York Times reported 160 school shootings since 2000. To help prevent them, FEMA did intensive psychological studies about on-campus shootings in order to give realistic information to schools nationwide.

These procedures aim to make the idea of a haven a reality. Now, in the event of an extreme threat, procedures won’t dictate the exactly what teachers and students must do and will have more of a reliance on human instinct.

New “restricted access” and “lockdown” policies have been implemented this year for the entire district. Haney says that a very important reason for the changes were so emergency procedure terminology was the same throughout the district. This makes communication easier between schools, the central office and the police departments. According to Associate Principal Britton Haney, the procedures were a product of new, study-based ideas regarding school safety.

In past years, during lockdown, teachers would lock the doors and continue teaching. This has been replaced by what is called a “restricted access” or “perimeter lockdown”. When a crisis occurs, East’s School Resource officers (SROs), Officer Boling and Officer Mieske, will lock all of the perimeter doors and will patrol the area to make sure no one comes onto the campus.

What was once called “code red” is now “lockdown”. Haney predicts a lockdown would be set into motion if a serious threat to the student body is present.

“We may call a lockdown for a worst possible situation; one of an active shooter, an active threat,” Boling said. “We may call a lockdown if we get a threat that says, ‘At this time there is supposed to be a bomb that goes off.’ We’ll call a lockdown and start scouring the building.”

Before, the “code red” procedure included locking the door,turning off the lights and hiding. In the new “lockdown” procedure, each individual class must assess the situation and make a plan. This may mean blocking the door with file cabinets and chairs, escaping through the window or fighting back against a perpetrator.

“It’s: assess the situation, then decide whether you are going to run, fight or hide,” Haney said.

To make the proper assessments, East teachers had to be educated for these situations. They trained during a teacher workday. Useful information, like the predicted actions of a school shooter, has been passed from FEMA to PV Police, East’s administration and the SRO officers. They will then relay it to teachers during inservices and through informational packets. In situations where the class must make a plan quickly, this information will aid the decision making process. If the situation calls for it, fighting a perpetrator is a viable option.

“If the best bet is you guys get in the corner, everybody has a book or a lead pipe or a wrench. And if someone comes through that door, you just let them have it,” Haney said. “And that’s what you’re gonna have to do.”

Though the plan is not “every man for himself,” it does allow classes to make a wide spectrum of choices.

“It provides a lot more flexibility [than the previous strategy] for both the first responders, and also for teachers and students,” Helgesen said.

If a lockdown were to occur, multiple plans would be set in motion. Administrators would secure their assigned doors. The PV police would be at East in a predicted 60 seconds. The SRO officers, stationed at East, have the ultimate goal of stopping the threat at its source. Meanwhile, the students and teachers who managed to get out of the school, would group on the football field and attempt to take attendance.

On Wednesday, there will be an evacuation drill where students and teachers will meet on the football field. Though the drill will take about an hour, Haney believes it is necessary. He believes it is the closest practical thing to a lockdown evacuation drill that can be exercised.

On days students don’t have school, Officer Boling and Officer Mieske will continue to train the staff during inservices. Teachers are then suggested to pass on information onto students.

Though Junior Paxton Pruneau feels safe at East, she is skeptical of the new lockdown procedure.

“I feel like the new procedures should be more set in stone like ‘This is what you do or don’t do’,” Pruneau said. “It could get really hectic.”

Haney stresses that, in order to maintain the level of preparedness and safety in East, students and teachers have to do their part. A major issue is that students and teachers sometimes prop open doors and then leave them unattended. In the bad situation, East would prefer an aggressive perpetrator to enter through the main office rather than through an unmonitored entrance.

Though school shootings almost reached 160 since 2000, East’s changes aim to protect the student body– and allow the student body to protect themselves.

“I would rather have free will in the classroom,” Sophomore John Arnspiger said, “than be forced to sit and face potential danger.”

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