News
Plans advance to protect students
Scott Wagar
12/25/2012
With the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Bottineau public schools, along with emergency response teams have been stepping up improvements within their school systems to make sure they are set for any type of scenario which could take place in their schools.
Ironically, just days before the Sandy Hook incident Bottineau County Emergency Office, in association with emergency response teams, Bottineau’s public schools and Wenck Associates, Inc., a Midwest team of emergency planners and incident consultants out of Mandan who have researched school shootings in the U.S. for a number of years, held a shooting scenario to see if all the parties involved had areas they needed to improve on.
“From the school’s stand point I thought the exercise went very well, and I now have a better understanding of what everybody else is doing when it comes to school shooting,” said Jason Kersten, superintendent of the Bottineau School District. “Everybody has a role and I think it was important for all of us to practice our roles at the same time to improve the safety of our schools.”
Kersten added that items were found that the school needs to improve on, which the district is currently working on to solve.
“We have some minor things we need to sure up so we can do a better job,” he said.
The school is looking at locking more doors at their schools, adding more cameras to certain areas of the schools and marking hallways so emergency response teams will have direction when coming into the schools.
“We are considering making access into the schools only through a small number of doors,” Kersten said. “And, even though we already have a number of cameras in our schools, we are considering placing more cameras in our buildings because there are a few specific places we would like to cover with cameras.
“As for the hallway markings, when we had the school shooting exercise, we discovered that some emergency response team members, individuals who seldom or never come into our schools, were lost in us giving directions where to go. So, hall markings would assist them where to go in an emergency.”
Rick Hummel, director of Bottineau County’s Emergency Response Office, stated that the school shooting scenario went well, but that communication was the biggest issue in the exercise.
“Communication is always an issue in any exercise,” Hummel said. “We have Bank 5 in our county’s radio systems, which we use in cases of emergencies. During the school shooting exercise we had a little confusion with Bank 5 and how to operate it, but since that time, several first responders from the county went to training sessions on Bank 5 and we will now go to the different departments and our responders how Bank 5 works.
“Bank 5 is a very good system,” Hummel stated. “However, it takes a wee bit of training to learn how to use it, but the training is not going to take long.”
For Steve Watson, sheriff of Bottineau County, exercise with the entire response teams grant students and personnel in the school system more protection in the long run.
“Not everything is perfect at scenario, but you have to build and continue training with different entities to fix problems,” Watson said. “We are very fortunate here in Bottineau because we have border patrol, highway patrol, game and fish and park service, which are all intertwined and work good with each other and learn from each other.”
Watson stated that what he learned was that his department needed more protective equipment going into a shooting situation.
“Seeing the equipment we didn’t have at the exercise like ballistic shields, helmets and other different equipment made me apply for a grant to get the equipment,” Watson said. “And, we will be getting the equipment soon.”
Since the Newtown, Conn., school shooting, Watson and his deputies are assisting the schools in Bottineau by spending extra time patrolling around the schools, and, spending time parked outside the schools during specific school hours.
Although the school hasn’t implemented their plans yet for a school shooting scenario which they learned at the exercise, Kersten said that if circumstances happened in the school they are prepared to protect the students and staff.
“We have a crisis plan that each teacher has,” Kersten said. “And we are working on moving forward quickly on the items we learned in the school shooting exercise.”
Wenck stated that Bottineau’s school system is well prepared and ahead of other schools in the state when it comes to a shooting in a school.
“When it came to the radio communication system, Bank 5, this was their first opportunity to test it with multiple agents and it went very well, said Derek Hanson, manager of safety and emergency preparedness for Wenck. “Sheriff Watson and his folks really have their act together. Unlike some communities that when we get there, there are several areas that they fail in and they need to improve upon. But, I would say Bottineau was one of better places for communications.”
Even though Bottineau had some small glitches in communication during the scenario, overall throughout the whole exercise Hanson was pleased with Bottineau’s readiness.
“I felt they did very well in the exercise,” he said.
Hummel stated that no plan is perfect when it comes to a school shooting, but for the local school and response teams they are continuing to push toward perfection.
“I feel we (the school and response teams) are ready for an incident like a school shooting, but you can never predict what a person is going to do and how that person is going to do it,’ Hummel said. “But, we will continue with meetings and training to do our best.”