MILL CREEK – Sounds of student chatter fill an office at Henry M. Jackson High School, followed abruptly by a gunshot, screams and moans of pain.
Assistant Principal Dave Peters is demonstrating a computer program that simulates a school shooting.
The program asks teachers what they should do next.
Do you check for injured students in the cafeteria or corral others into the nearest classroom that can be locked?
Open the door for the student pounding and screaming to be let in or stay silent?
A loud warning siren goes off if you take too long to select your answer.
In a real shooting, there would be no time for debate.
Teachers at the Mill Creek school helped test the computer program last spring. It’s a product from Incident Tactics, a Lynnwood consulting company, and it runs about $5,000.
The company also has other simulated challenges for schools, such as earthquakes, chemical spills, pandemic flu – even a plane crash.
It’s one of the more unusual measures schools are trying out to keep their campuses secure in the face of violence or, what they call more likely, a natural disaster.
Nearly 300 incidents of students carrying weapons to school, including 11 guns, were reported in the 2004-05 school year across Snohomish County, according to data kept by the state superintendent’s office.
Three fatal school shootings in several weeks in Colorado, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have again brought school safety concerns to the forefront.
“When something happens in another state or here, it’s going to be the story for awhile, and there’s going to be some fear,” Peters said. “How many people die every day in a car? Yet we still get in a car. … It’s so much safer to be in school than just about anywhere else.”
Youth are over 70 times more likely to be murdered away from school, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
“But you still want to be prepared,” Peters said.
Other local safety measures:
* Edmonds School District is adding emergency storage sheds at schools that will be outfitted with flashlights, food, water, medical kits and other items.
* Everett School District has a new phone system that can deliver recorded safety messages to the parent or guardian of each of its more than 18,000 students simultaneously.
* Stanwood-Camano School District schools have a portable “command black box” that holds copies of key documents, such as information on student medical needs.
All middle and high schools in Snohomish County are now digitally mapped, part of a statewide program that gives law enforcement agencies instant access to floor plans, photos, locations of utility shutoffs and other information that may be needed in a disaster.
The information was used by authorities when a student fired a gun and barricaded himself inside a classroom at Lewis &Clark High School in Spokane in September 2003.
Other measures common to schools include anonymous tip lines, short-wave radios that would work in power outages and, at many high schools, uniformed police officers.
“It’s impressive the attention given” to safety, said Jane McGeehan, Stanwood-Camano School District assistant superintendent. “We certainly hope we never have to use any of them.”
More than black boxes and computer programs, keeping schools safe requires school administrators, law enforcement and mental health professionals to meet regularly and discuss students who are potential threats, said Martin Speckmaier, a school safety expert and former Edmonds police officer.
“It’s not a school problem. It’s a school-community problem.”
During the 2001-02 school year, there were 17 homicides and five suicides of students on school campuses nationwide. That’s less than one violent death for every 1 million students.
“We’re always going to have violence,” said Bill Woodward, training director for the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
“The key is that, at least on an annual basis, you do a school safety audit. That means you look at the physical security of the school. But more importantly, you look at the climate of the school,” he said.
Teachers have a lot on their minds, but typically not fear of gunfire, said Ryan Simmons, a history teacher at Jackson High School.
“When you hear them in the news, it’s always quite a shock,” he said. “It’s not something that sits in the back of my mind.”
Simmons said a computer screen is no match for reality. But the simulation program he and his colleagues went through earlier this year required them to react on instinct, based on what they knew and had learned.
Violence can never be fully prevented except perhaps by sacrificing the freedoms that come with living in an open society, said Nick Brossoit, superintendent in Edmonds.
“How people react in the moment is the thing you want to prepare for,” he said.
Reporter Melissa Slager: 425-339-3465 or mslager@ heraldnet.com.
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