Everett Public Schools staff train for crisis situations

EVERETT — It’s a conversation meant to fuel the next conversation.

What can they do better? What remains unknown?

Everett Public Schools staff recently underwent extensive training on how to think and act in a school shooting or other major incident such as an earthquake.

“The purpose of this is coming together,” Assistant Superintendent Molly Ringo told those gathered at a March 12 session for principals.

It was the first time the district has coordinated intensive training on the topic for every school and nearly every school employee, spokeswoman Mary Waggoner said.

Teachers, principals, school nurses and office workers spent time with maps of Everett campuses and talked about where ambulances might park and where people could run to safety.

It’s not an easy subject for educators who have dedicated their lives to young people. In a perfect world, Everett police wouldn’t have to stand in front of teachers and have that conversation, said Sgt. Tim Reeves, who leads the department’s youth services unit.

In this world, though, school violence is a reality, he said, and it requires a plan. The conversation in the Everett district started before the Oct. 24 shootings at Marysville Pilchuck High School, but that incident came up often during the training sessions.

The training is part of a series of security upgrades at schools in recent years, Reeves said.

At the district-wide session March 20, several teachers mentioned to others at their tables that they had thought about what they would do in a shooting. Talking to their colleagues about everyone’s role was something new.

Lessons from actual school shootings are being applied in plans in Everett and elsewhere. For example, Everett schools are adding construction-style vests to emergency kits, because in the chaos and confusion, that could help police and medics more easily determine who works at the school.

Custodians, in particular, are important because they know details about buildings, fences and windows, Snohomish County Sheriff’s Lt. Scott Parker said during a training at Penny Creek Elementary.

Everett schools also are backing away from rules forbidding students from sending their parents text messages after a major incident.

It’s still “new thinking” for teachers to encourage kids to tell their parents they’re OK, because “the world has changed,” Ringo said. Still, she said, that has to happen carefully, because texting and social media can spread panic and misinformation in the early minutes and hours of emergencies.

The district-wide training wasn’t meant to be a script for every crisis. Instead, Dave Osman, an Everett police school resource officer, encouraged teachers and principals to be flexible and to empower themselves to make the decisions that seem right in the moment. Even the best of plans don’t always account for stress and emotion, he said.

Any decisions made in a crisis will be questioned for years to come, Osman said, but saving young lives is more important. He cited a shooting when someone threw a chair at a gunman, temporarily distracting him. Those kinds of decisions happen in seconds, but have a potential effect on the outcome, he said.

Emergency management folks and safety experts have struggled to find a balance of providing schools with instructions that are sufficient but not too general.

For example, teachers around the country have been given conflicting instructions on whether they should try to leave with students who run off campus or stay behind, Osman said. In an emergency, each adult is responsible for the kids they’re with at the time, and that means staying with them, even if they run.

“That’s not cowardly,” he said. “That’s courageous.”

Other questions that came up during the sessions included:

“911’s been called. What happens next?”

“What if I have the shooter’s kid, the one he’s after?”

“There’s a knock on your classroom door. What do you do?”

“What about when I feel helpless?”

Each small group took notes to share with their bosses on what still needs work, which questions need answers.

Those questions are the first step in an imperfect and uncomfortable process, Edmonds Community College emergency preparedness manager Jade Broglio* told those gathered at North Middle School.

Osman echoed the thought. He and Mary O’Brien, North Middle’s principal, meet often about school safety — what to do and how to work around any problems.

“We’ve learned a lot about what we need to work on and fix, but remember all of us are going to get better and better every day,” he said.

Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com.

* This article was changed since it was first posted to correctly state Jade Broglio’s job title.