On Aug. 14, 2013, ASSE presented Emergency Management: Active Shooter in Public Schools, a webinar
addressing the process of preventing, preparing for, responding to and
recovering from active shooter situations in schools.
After discussing how to develop a preparedness plan foractive shooter scenarios, speaker David J Akers III, a safety and occupational
health professional at Concurrent Technologies Corporation, recommended taking
the following steps:
- Train staff to ensure that they are aware of the determined strategies for responding to catastrophic events. All staff members should know their roles and responsibilities during such an event.
- Students, teachers and other staff need to be able to recognize the sound of gunshots, which may sound different from T.V. depictions of gunshots.
- Students and staff alike should be trained on recognizing and responding to acts of violence and patterns of escalating behavior that may be exhibited by fellow students or staff members.
- Conduct drills and have periodic meetings to discuss how effective the drills are.
- Make drills as realistic as possible but avoid creating unnecessary stress. As part of drills, children should be taught where and how to hide. The location of the threat should be varied from one drill to the next to prevent predictability and ensure that everyone can respond to a variety of scenarios.