R.I. Schools Employ Advanced Active Shooter Drills

The Providence Journal, R.I.

May 12—The jarring pow-pow noise of an assault rifle signified both evil and a new level of safety training for teachers participating in a drill at Cumberland High School.

Posing as an active shooter, a state trooper fired blank shots from an M4, which resounded through corridors and penetrated classroom walls.

The trooper, Jeremy Gaucher, behaved as if he were seeking out young people to shoot and kill while teachers in classrooms followed their latest training for the ghastly scenario.

The teachers made certain that their classroom doors and windows were locked shut and switched off lights. They turned off computers and pulled down blinds on windows, including the windows built into some classroom doors.

They kept a dispersed physical presence within the rooms, spreading out rather than clustering together, and they avoided making any sounds or movements. They did nothing to draw the attention of the shooter in the adjacent hallway.

Rhode Island schools have been drilling for such "active shooter incidents" for years. But the recent exercise in Cumberland is among a very small number of training scenarios incorporating the sound of gunfire, says a leading expert on school shootings, Rhode Island State Police Capt. Derek Borek.

The high-profile drill, as well as planning for other similarly realistic simulations to take place next fall, are part of a recent uptick in preparedness efforts focused on preventing and dealing with a school shooting. This latest activity builds on previous efforts, also quite extensive, that had mostly flown under the radar.

However, in the wake of the shooting in Parkland, Florida, some state officials, including Gov. Gina Raimondo, wanted to make sure that Rhode Island was doing everything possible to eliminate the chance of a mass murder in a school building. They turned to Borek and the statewide School Safety Committee that he leads, convening the panel's monthly meetings at the state police barracks in Lincoln.

Borek, who led a tactical team that helped in the hunt for suspects after the Boston Marathon bombing, reads exhaustive investigative reports on school shootings. He knows about the vulnerabilities that active shooters try to exploit and how they themselves are vulnerable as they do it.

He believes in planning ahead, locking doors and doing simulations like the recent April 16 drill in Cumberland, which took place on the 11th anniversary of a mass shooting that killed 32 people on the campus of Virginia Tech in 2007.

By the time the exercise was over, some teachers were visibly shaking, Borek says, adding, "I think every teacher should go through it, quite honestly."

Rhode Island's School Safety Committee started at the state Department of Education in 2006 and moved to the Rhode Island Department of Emergency Management in 2011. Borek later became chairman.

Previously, the committee asked all schools to develop emergency action plans. More recently, the committee has asked schools to answer questions in a written safety assessment.

Meanwhile, legislation pending in the General Assembly would require districts to participate in the assessments. So far, says Borek, a total of 17 districts have provided answers to questions in the 14-page assessment.

The purpose of the assessment is to help schools take steps to ensure that the easiest things that can be done to ensure school safety are happening, Borek said.

The questions in the assessment hint at issues that are important to protecting buildings and dealing with an active shooting incident.

Has the school established prearranged staging areas for parents and media?

"Do ... bushes, trees ... restrict visibility at entrances/exits to buildings?"

Can someone climb onto the roof of the school from trees? Are the exterior doors numbered from the outside? Are all openings to the school's roof locked? Is there a master key system? Who has the keys?

Often the person with the keys is the school facilities manager.

"That's the person I want to be in contact with," says Borek.

In Scituate, Clayville Elementary Principal Courtney Francis controls one of the master keys, keeping it on a purple lanyard around her neck.

"The last thing you want is first responders getting there and not being able to get in because everything is locked down," says Scituate School Superintendent Lawrence Filippelli, who is a member of the safety committee.

So in the main office at Clayville, Francis has the school's extensive "go kits," assemblies of essential documents and tools for managing students and facilities and helping police and emergency personnel in an emergency.

In Scituate, the kits include aluminum-style blankets and bullhorns.

Borek recommends that the kits include printed floor plans with information such as the locations of special-needs students and the location of preplanned staging areas that students might evacuate to.

Such planning and preparedness is an evolving process. It might never end. After the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, lessons were learned about locking interior doors. Borek says that locking classroom doors during the school day will slow down a shooter trying to find targets.

In Parkland, the shooter foiled that system by pulling the fire alarm and bringing his targets into corridors.

Now, in response to that, some, including Borek, are saying that schools should delay emergency evacuations briefly to make sure there isn't an active shooter threat.

"It's the little things you can do to have a tactical advantage in these situations," Borek says.

"You don't want to be a soft target," he adds.