Marshall County Schools, Responders Prep for Worst-Case Scenario
Emma Delk Trending
MOUNDSVILLE -- Marshall County Schools staff, local law enforcement and first responders gathered at Moundsville Middle School on Wednesday morning to participate in an operations-based emergency training.
The exercise covered the emergency process in the event of an active shooter at the school, including building evacuation, law enforcement securing the area, patient triage and transport and student/parent reunification.
The exercise concluded Marshall County EMA's active shooter series. Other drills and training sessions were held leading up to Wednesday to familiarize staff and first responders with the county's emergency protocols.
More than 20 response agencies participated in the drill, including law enforcement, emergency medical services, the Marshall County Emergency Management Office and the Marshall County 911 Center. More than 200 teachers and other staff members participated in the drill.
The drill was organized by JH Consulting, with set-up beginning at 6 a.m. MCS staff were assigned roles for the drill, including two shooters and multiple victims.
The exercise began shortly after 8 a.m. with air rifles fired in the school. Law enforcement officers then breached the school to find and neutralize the shooters and begin to treat victims.
First responders followed law enforcement once the shooters were neutralized to remove those injured from the classrooms and transport them to Reynolds Memorial Hospital. Other staff were evacuated from the school to the John Marshall Field House.
Other MCS staff had to lock down the classrooms they were stationed in. Buses also came to the school to evacuate students.
The field house was the location of the student/parent reunification. MCS staff were assigned parent/student roles, and a county office staff member was in charge of matching students with the correct guardian at the field house.
After the exercise, participants transitioned into the drill debriefing session. Evaluators were present during the exercise to point out strengths and areas for improvement.
JH Consulting Senior Consultant Doug Britvec said the drill helped first responders and MCS staff understand each other's roles and protocols during an emergency. He noted that practicing emergency response drills for school personnel helps improve school safety, as staff become more familiar with what they should do during an emergency.
MCS Safety Director Shey McGuire said nine months of planning went into organizing the drill to prepare school staff and first responders for the scenario. He said the drill allowed them to identify issues that "need to be addressed and fixed" for a better response during a real emergency at the school.
"The response we're practicing today isn't just a school response- we have many different organizations participating today, and we need to be able to communicate information from one organization to the other to respond effectively," McGuire said. "I hope the staff today sees how seriously we take school safety. I also hope all the local law enforcement officers, first responders, fire departments, medics and health department staff here today take this drill and school safety seriously to ensure our schools are safe."
McGuire added that this was the first time MCS had practiced a large-scale reunification drill. In April, a functional, small-scale reunification exercise was held at the field house to prepare for the emergency drill.
McGuire said the reunification portion of the exercise was important as it would help students reunify with parents for any emergency, not just the armed assailant situation on Wednesday.
"We want to run through this to find out what we need to correct and improve in case we have to reunify," McGuire said. "This drill will apply to various emergencies, including a gas leak or a power outage in the winter, when the school could become unsafe because of the cold. Other environmental hazards require us to evacuate from a different site and reunify with the non-traditional school area."
MCS Superintendent Shelby Haines said one protocol she found important during the drill was that staff and school visitors wear identification in school. She noted that staff wearing name tags allows law enforcement officers to know who they are interacting with during an emergency.
"When an emergency like this happens, emergency management from the tri-state area will be at the scene, and they're not going to know that I'm the superintendent," Haines said. "It's important that we have staff and visitors wear name tags so first responders know who they're interacting with."
Haines also emphasized the importance of participants noting any issues during the drill that needed to be addressed during the debriefing.
"We do this drill so we know what we are missing and what we need to improve if there were an actual school shooting," Haines said.
One issue Haines discovered was the need for a third radio at the county office to communicate with schools and law enforcement in case she and McGuire, who typically have the other two radios, were not at the office during an emergency. Haines said another problem found in their emergency protocols was law enforcement blocking off a road that buses needed to access.
"We want to learn things from this drill," Haines said. "We practice this so if we ever do have an intruder, everybody knows to get their door locked, how to use their radio and perform any other protocol."