Multiple law enforcement agencies to participate
What would you do if an active shooter came into your school? That’s the question local educators and law enforcement officials hope to answer this Friday during a safety drill at Habersham Central High School.
The drill is scheduled to take place March 17 from 1:30-3:30 p.m. at the high school in Mt. Airy. School district safety coordinator Adam Bagwell says, “It’s a good way to enhance safety for our district, not just for school personnel but also law enforcement.”
“Hopefully we will never need this training,” he says, “but if we do it will prepare us.”
Bagwell, an assistant principal at HCHS, has been with the Habersham County school system for three years and has served as the system’s safety coordinator for two years. In that time he says there’s never been an active shooter drill in one of our public schools.
“It’s going to give us a good chance to practice our safety plan. We can experience what would happen if law enforcement responded to an active shooter situation at the school,” he says. “On the law enforcement end, it gives them the opportunity to respond to an emergency so they can familiarize themselves with our school.”
Administrators from all eleven of the county’s public schools will be on hand to witness and learn from the event. “Hopefully we will never need this training,” Bagwell says, “but if we do, it will prepare us.”
Thursday, March 16th and Friday, March 17th are teacher training days. That means the only students who’ll be involved in the drill are drama students acting out roles and audio/video tech students who’ll record the drill for training purposes.
Multiple local and state agencies will be involved including the Habersham County Sheriff’s Office, Habersham County Special Response Team (SRT), Habersham County School Resource Officers (SRO), Habersham County Emergency Management Agency (EMA), Habersham County Fire Department, Habersham County Emergency Medical Services (EMS), the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency, and Georgia State Patrol.
Bagwell says the idea for the drill came from a meeting he had last year with Habersham County School Superintendent Matthew Cooper. “Mr Cooper and I met back in July to talk about safety issues and trends to work on at a district level.” Cooper presented the idea of holding an active shooter drill during that meeting and Bagwell says that was the catalyst for this week’s exercise. “Hopefully we will never need this training,” he says, “but if we do it will prepare us.”
