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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

ISD 696 considers active-shooter training for school staff

Keith Vandervort
Posted 7/20/22

ELY – As school shootings continue to increase across the country, the risk of such a tragedy has not been lost on ISD 696 officials, and discussions have ramped up on conducting active shooter …

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ISD 696 considers active-shooter training for school staff

Posted

ELY – As school shootings continue to increase across the country, the risk of such a tragedy has not been lost on ISD 696 officials, and discussions have ramped up on conducting active shooter training for school staff here.
The Ely Police Department’s emergency management director, Officer Bradley Roy, addressed the issue last week with the Ely school board.
School board chair Ray Marsnik opened the discussion, “We have been talking about getting ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuation) training for our teachers, and Officer Roy is certified to teach that program, but we’re not quite ready to do that yet.”
Roy said he obtained a cost quote of just over $2,000 earlier this year to conduct the training.
He explained that the training consists of online training followed by in-person participation in real-life scenarios involving school teachers and staff with law enforcement officials. A first-aid class, with materials contributed by the Ely-Bloomenson Community Hospital, could also be part of the training, Roy added.
“This is a great program,” Roy said. “It is sort of the pioneering response to (a school shooter or intruder) which focuses on having a proactive procedure. Once we get a School Resource Officer, that person would come in and teach students as well.”
Roy, who was previously involved in active shooter training, said the ALICE training is a “blended model” with online training for teachers to pre-prepare with basic knowledge.
“The training scenarios, which I recommend, are important for learning,” he said. “I also like to go into each classroom and breakdown (details) such as how to barricade a door and other scenarios. The training scenarios would take three or four hours.”
The school district would be responsible for covering initial costs of gaining access to the online training portal, Roy explained.
“It costs nothing for you guys to have me come into the school to conduct the scenario training.”
Board member Tony Colarich inquired how Ely teachers and staff would remain current on how active shooter responses evolve.
“Typically, for the school to be ALICE certified, as many as 80 percent of the staff must be trained on a yearly basis,” Roy said. I would recommend you treat this training like fire drill training. Be proactive. I would recommend conducting the scenario-based training at least once a year at minimum.”
Roy noted that Lake County schools are certified, as well as ISD 2142 in St. Louis County.
“I know that Vermilion Community College (VCC) has been trained on it, they plan to re-up again, and the hospital here is trained. I am training our (law enforcement) agency right now, so we all know how to respond. The more systemic the better,” he said.
Anne Oelke, K-5 principal, said school staff was last trained on intruder scenarios about five years ago.
“With changes in the superintendents here, they come in with different philosophies and perspectives on active shooters and how to respond. It kind of died in the water after our first training. So, this is nothing new to some of our staff. We are on the verge of redoing this training,” she said.
Roy said he will soon be participating in an active-shooter training in Babbitt, being conducted by the St. Louis County Sheriff’s office.
“They are talking about having their teachers be involved as well,” he said. “They are still weighing the pros and cons because it can be a traumatic thing even though it is just a training. But in the future, I would like to have one of the trainings here (involving St. Louis County law enforcement officials).”
Oelke added, “Most importantly, we need to communicate our plan on how we are doing this. We focus on our teachers and staff and training us first before we do anything with our students. That is where some of the concern and anxiety with our families comes from.”