School Administrators Receive Active Shooter Situation Training from Sheriffs Department
With mass shootings on the rise in the United States, the need for training to provide better understanding, prevention, and deterence are in demand. The Montgomery Sheriffs Department is using special techniques to help train Alabama teachers and administrators in the event they should be involved in an active shooter situation. The training course is called M.A.S.T.E, which stands for Mitigating the Active Shooter Threat for Educators. The program focuses on protecting students in the classrooms should an active shooter enter a school.
The course gives educators guidance on how to make safe security decisions when facing an active shooter situation. It provides real-life encounters using virtual reality and live classroom training.
The sheriff’s department demonstrated to school administrators possible solutions of what to do in different situations.
Lieutenant Randy Pollard with the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department says he wants to give teachers enough knowledge that they can be prepared for whatever could happen in the classroom.
“We also wanted to talk more about what law enforcement would do, the single officer response to that, the stuff that we’re teaching now and be able to expose them to some simple stimulus here in the building that I think everyone is walking away now going I just didn’t understand it would be like that.”
In this classroom, teachers were the students in the training session. Heather Grayson is the assistant principal at Brewbaker Primary. She says she attended because she wanted to learn more on what to do should her school face an active shooter situation.
“We signed up because we felt like we just wanted to be knowledgeable and have some techniques on hand,” Grayson said. “We want to be able to equip our teachers to handle the situation.”
She says she will now be more aware of the changes that need to be made in her school so her students are safe in the classroom.
“I learned that every building and every school is different,” Grayson said. “You have to observe and look around, and figure out what are your weak areas so that you can affect change to make sure your students and staff are safe.”
The next training course for school administrators will take place July 19th
