musher
Member
Part of me thinks it's great they're training, but another part is a bit aghast at them using middle school students as training material.
What do you think
school prepares for worst
Article Published: Friday, May 06, 2005
School prepares for the worst
By AMANDA BOHMAN, Staff Writer
NORTH POLE--Wearing military fatigues and a sign that read "Bad Guy," Daniel Walters rattled doors and banged on lockers as more than 500 North Pole Middle School students spent Thursday's sixth period huddled silently under desks in dark, locked classrooms.
Principal John Pile lay on the floor near the school's front doors after a pretend assault by Walters.
A team of North Pole police officers swept the school with their unloaded weapons drawn and apprehended an errant lunchroom monitor before detaining Walters, who in real life is a freshman at Hutchison High School.
The elaborately-scripted drill--which took months to plan, involved two FBI agents as observers and began with a smoke grenade to simulate toxic smoke at a nearby oil refinery--ended an 18-month, $248,521 federally funded effort to shore up safety in the area's public schools.
Eric Engman/News-Miner SAFETY TRAINING--North Pole police officers, led by Lt. Steve Dutra, second from left, fan out with unloaded weapons to search the hallways during an Emergency Response and Crisis Management Improvement Project field exercise Thursday at North Pole Middle School. From left, the officers are Terry Young, Dutra, Scott Deal and Bill Bellant. The exercise tested the response team as well as the students and staff about dealing with an armed intruder in the school.
"As we all know, the world is getting more dangerous, not safer," said Doug Crevensten, grants and special projects director for the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District.
The effort began in 2003 when area officials traveled to the National Emergency Training Center in Maryland for training.
After they returned, they taught teams of teachers, secretaries, custodians, nurses and sometimes parents and students how to revise the emergency response plans for each of the district's 32 schools. The teams concocted multiple "what if" scenarios and talked out their responses to each of them.
According to Crevensten, many ideas for the revised plans came from lessons learned in the wake of the April 1999 rampage at Columbine High School in Colorado, which ended in the deaths of 12 students, a teacher and two teen gunmen.
"There were some real mistakes made," Crevensten said.
Now, every classroom in the district should have a copy of their school's emergency response plan, school district officials said. The plans come in flip-chart form, allowing teachers to easily turn to the type of emergency and read how to respond.
In the case of Thursday's drill, teachers and administrators had to follow directions for when a school has an intruder.
Lunch monitor Lamara Lane found herself alone in the in-school suspension room with no key to lock the door after the drill began.
She shut off the lights and crouched against a wall, trying to hide from someone who might come in, she said.
Police officers who entered the room treated her as the potential intruder since the room was not locked, per protocol.
"They told me to get my hands up and put them against the wall," Lane said. "It got my heart pounding. I have a child who goes here. I was really impressed."
Lane also noted the quiet. During a normal school period, she can hear students in other classrooms chattering.
"I was impressed that they could keep their mouths shut," she said.
The drill was not graded. Instead, observers watched the actions, jotted notes and met with school officials to offer recommendations.
At a press conference held after the drill, school Librarian Lyn Ballam said school administrators also took notes. She found a few weaknesses that the school's Crisis Response Team will work to correct.
One is the single phone line in the school's main office. In a real emergency, one line would be insufficient to field calls from worried parents, classrooms reporting missing students and to contact the school's pool, where there are classrooms but no intercom to alert teachers of an emergency.
Ballam also wants to work on what administrators would tell parents who call during an emergency.
"A lot of that is going to depend on what the situation is," said North Pole Fire Chief Buddy Lane, who ran the drill.
Two students interviewed after the drill said they feel safe at their school.
Seventh grader Bobbie Szymd pointed out the North Pole Police Department lies less than a mile from the school.
"If anything happens, they'll be here," she said.
Eighth-grader Anthony Griffin said he feels safe because a member of the school's Crisis Response Team is retired from the U.S. Navy.
"He has military background," Griffin said. "He knows how to get out of stuff."
Before the grant-fueled effort to delve into schools' emergency readiness, some schools kept their plans up to date while others didn't, said Joe Deutsch, assistant principal at Hutchison High School and project coordinator for the grant.
"It was kind of hit and miss," he said.
The federal grant allowed only enough money for one school to conduct a live drill. North Pole was chosen because its plan was among the most well-developed, officials said.
"They were ready," Deutsch said.
Three schools in Alaska have been granted the federal funding since it became available in 2003, according to Crevensten.
The Southwest Regional School District in Dillingham received $98,345 in 2003 for emergency readiness. The Aleutians East Borough School district received $99,994 last year.
Pile said he thinks drills such as Thursday's should be a regular occurrence.
"Hopefully, this will be a routine activity in years to come," he said.
What do you think
school prepares for worst
Article Published: Friday, May 06, 2005
School prepares for the worst
By AMANDA BOHMAN, Staff Writer
NORTH POLE--Wearing military fatigues and a sign that read "Bad Guy," Daniel Walters rattled doors and banged on lockers as more than 500 North Pole Middle School students spent Thursday's sixth period huddled silently under desks in dark, locked classrooms.
Principal John Pile lay on the floor near the school's front doors after a pretend assault by Walters.
A team of North Pole police officers swept the school with their unloaded weapons drawn and apprehended an errant lunchroom monitor before detaining Walters, who in real life is a freshman at Hutchison High School.
The elaborately-scripted drill--which took months to plan, involved two FBI agents as observers and began with a smoke grenade to simulate toxic smoke at a nearby oil refinery--ended an 18-month, $248,521 federally funded effort to shore up safety in the area's public schools.
Eric Engman/News-Miner SAFETY TRAINING--North Pole police officers, led by Lt. Steve Dutra, second from left, fan out with unloaded weapons to search the hallways during an Emergency Response and Crisis Management Improvement Project field exercise Thursday at North Pole Middle School. From left, the officers are Terry Young, Dutra, Scott Deal and Bill Bellant. The exercise tested the response team as well as the students and staff about dealing with an armed intruder in the school.
"As we all know, the world is getting more dangerous, not safer," said Doug Crevensten, grants and special projects director for the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District.
The effort began in 2003 when area officials traveled to the National Emergency Training Center in Maryland for training.
After they returned, they taught teams of teachers, secretaries, custodians, nurses and sometimes parents and students how to revise the emergency response plans for each of the district's 32 schools. The teams concocted multiple "what if" scenarios and talked out their responses to each of them.
According to Crevensten, many ideas for the revised plans came from lessons learned in the wake of the April 1999 rampage at Columbine High School in Colorado, which ended in the deaths of 12 students, a teacher and two teen gunmen.
"There were some real mistakes made," Crevensten said.
Now, every classroom in the district should have a copy of their school's emergency response plan, school district officials said. The plans come in flip-chart form, allowing teachers to easily turn to the type of emergency and read how to respond.
In the case of Thursday's drill, teachers and administrators had to follow directions for when a school has an intruder.
Lunch monitor Lamara Lane found herself alone in the in-school suspension room with no key to lock the door after the drill began.
She shut off the lights and crouched against a wall, trying to hide from someone who might come in, she said.
Police officers who entered the room treated her as the potential intruder since the room was not locked, per protocol.
"They told me to get my hands up and put them against the wall," Lane said. "It got my heart pounding. I have a child who goes here. I was really impressed."
Lane also noted the quiet. During a normal school period, she can hear students in other classrooms chattering.
"I was impressed that they could keep their mouths shut," she said.
The drill was not graded. Instead, observers watched the actions, jotted notes and met with school officials to offer recommendations.
At a press conference held after the drill, school Librarian Lyn Ballam said school administrators also took notes. She found a few weaknesses that the school's Crisis Response Team will work to correct.
One is the single phone line in the school's main office. In a real emergency, one line would be insufficient to field calls from worried parents, classrooms reporting missing students and to contact the school's pool, where there are classrooms but no intercom to alert teachers of an emergency.
Ballam also wants to work on what administrators would tell parents who call during an emergency.
"A lot of that is going to depend on what the situation is," said North Pole Fire Chief Buddy Lane, who ran the drill.
Two students interviewed after the drill said they feel safe at their school.
Seventh grader Bobbie Szymd pointed out the North Pole Police Department lies less than a mile from the school.
"If anything happens, they'll be here," she said.
Eighth-grader Anthony Griffin said he feels safe because a member of the school's Crisis Response Team is retired from the U.S. Navy.
"He has military background," Griffin said. "He knows how to get out of stuff."
Before the grant-fueled effort to delve into schools' emergency readiness, some schools kept their plans up to date while others didn't, said Joe Deutsch, assistant principal at Hutchison High School and project coordinator for the grant.
"It was kind of hit and miss," he said.
The federal grant allowed only enough money for one school to conduct a live drill. North Pole was chosen because its plan was among the most well-developed, officials said.
"They were ready," Deutsch said.
Three schools in Alaska have been granted the federal funding since it became available in 2003, according to Crevensten.
The Southwest Regional School District in Dillingham received $98,345 in 2003 for emergency readiness. The Aleutians East Borough School district received $99,994 last year.
Pile said he thinks drills such as Thursday's should be a regular occurrence.
"Hopefully, this will be a routine activity in years to come," he said.
