SISSONVILLE, W.Va. — A message over the school’s public address system announced an intruder is in the building. Such a remark would tend to strike fear into the heart of anyone, but teachers and staff at Kanawha County schools are learning to deal with the possibilities.
Four schools went through one of the four lockdown drills they are required to have on Wednesday. The drills were staged at Holz Elementary, Flinn Elementary, Belle Elementary, and Sissonville Middle School.
“Before you had to do a minimum of one lockdown drill a year and we realized that’s not enough time,” said Keith Vititoe, director of security for Kanawha County Schools. “If you’re only doing one thing for 15 to 30 minutes a year how can you expect to be real good at that? So we quadrupled that and made it four drills a year.”
The Sandy Hook shooting brought the lockdown drill into the public conscious, but since then how you react to an intruder in a school has changed, according to Vivitoe.
“We’ve moved away from the traditional model where children and staff stay in the classroom no matter what,” he said. “We train and empower them to make the decision to leave the building if they need to to provide for their own safety.”
Many of the elementary schools in Kanawha County have an exit door in the classroom. In those instances, children lined up and headed out the door onto the playground. For those without a door, there is a designated exit window.
“If they don’t have an exit door, they have a designated emergency exit window and they have to be able to get out of that,” said Vivitoe. “They have to practice that and that’s fun for the kids.”
When lockdown drills were first considered in Kanawha County there was a concern such drills would incite fear and panic in students. Vititoe said that hasn’t happened.
“I know there was a lot of concern when we first started but we’ve seen the opposite of what some of the negative reviews would have told you,” Vititoe said. “The kids are having a blast.”
Each drill is crafted to be age appropriate in the language and handling of the emergency. Vivitoe added while the children are enjoying the drills, they have also taken them seriously.