Berkeley Leader

issued the following announcement on February 18.

It is a serious subject to tackle, but the idea behind this hands-on workshop was not to scare teachers, and instead to empower them to feel better equipped to take charge in the event of an active shooter.

The whole goal behind Berkeley County School District’s active shooter / gunfire recognition training, held at Cane Bay Elementary on Friday, was to educate teachers so they might better be able to understand what gunfire sounds like inside of a building, and thus have them prepared to keep their classrooms safe.

Tim Knight, Security and Emergency Management Director for Berkeley County School District, said the district started the training program about five years ago. The training involved shooting blank ammunition to demonstrate what real gunfire sounds like inside of a school.

Knight said most people have never heard what gunfire sounds like inside of a building; gunshots inside of a building sound completely different from how they sound outside.

“We definitely don’t want to scare anybody,” Knight said. “It’s all about empowering our teachers. Unfortunately, it’s the world we live in today.”

The hope was, by the end of training, teachers would have a better idea of distinguishing between everyday sounds (i.e.: lockers and doors slamming shut, items falling, etc.), or something that poses a potential threat to their classroom.

“God forbid that ever happens, but they’ll know how to respond quickly and in the best way they can to keep themselves and the kids safe,” Knight said.

Teachers were invited to attend any one of three sessions on Friday during a professional development day in the district called “BCSD Conference 2022 – Unite and Ignite”. Most of the professional development was done virtually this year because of the ongoing pandemic, but the active shooter / gunfire recognition training was done in-person.

“This is training that you really can’t do virtually – it’s really got to be in-person,” Knight said.

Each session started off with Knight explaining to teachers the importance of being prepared, and giving them the rundown of what they would experience during the training. Teachers were then ushered into a classroom while members of the district’s safety and emergency management team fired off rounds in different parts of the building.

The ammunition used in the demonstration was movie production-quality “blank” ammunition – no real bullets were used.

The safety and security team used a .22 caliber rifle, a .38 caliber revolver, a .223 rifle and a 12-guage shotgun. Knight took the teachers, as well as district school resource officers, to a classroom and communicated with members of the safety and emergency team to have them fire off rounds so that teachers could get an idea of what the shots sounded like inside a building. 

Team members fired off each firearm twice from three different distances, each location getting closer and closer to the classroom (teachers were warned when rounds were about to go off). After each round, Knight would talk with teachers about what they heard, and how to react in different scenarios – whether locking down, barricading the door, or evacuating the classroom is the best option in certain situations.

Devon Forest Elementary kindergarten assistant Beth Frost said she attended the session because “education is key.”

“It was real – it was kind of scary, but you need to know (and) be aware of your surroundings, what you’re listening for…it was very informative,” she said.

Frost said while it was scary, she does not think it is a course that teachers need to be afraid to attend.

“Lots of people see ‘active shooter’, and it’s kind of intimidating and scary, but it’s not about scaring, it’s about educating,” she said, adding it is extremely important to be prepared. “You have to learn what your response is going to be.”

Frost also noted that while listening to the rounds being fired, they really did sound like noises she hears every day.

“We have kids – they’re loud,” she said. “We’re in our classrooms teaching, singing – we’re in kindergarten. We do a lot of moving. But…you have to be aware, and if you hear something, you have to go with your instinct.”

Cane Bay Elementary Principal Melissa LaBerge has participated in the training multiple times herself, and said the training session is another tool to prepare teachers for such situations.

“It’s pretty intense,” LaBerge said. “We go through all of these trainings to know how to react, but to hear it in your own school building is pretty intense.

“But it’s good because it’s just another way for us to best be prepared if, for some reason, something tragic was to happen,” she said, adding, “I have some new staff who haven’t been able to participate before, and to be in your own building and be able to hear it – I think it is important and it really brings it home.”

LaBerge said her school has a great partnership with the district’s safety and security team, as well as local law enforcement.

“The very first time that we had the training, we had multiple law enforcement agencies here,” she said. “They come consistently every year and work closely with our school and our staff. I think the more training that we have, the better that we can be prepared to really act when we need to.”

Knight said BCSD has very safe schools, and the district is always proactive about training teachers and maintaining a safe environment in all school buildings.

“We want to do all we can to empower our teachers; they have our most precious cargo…and we want them to be confident, and we want them to feel safe, and we want them to be able to make the best decisions for our kids,” he said.

Monica Kreber

kreberm@bcsdschools.net

Original source can be found here.