JCPS active shooter training for teachers, staff underway

Jefferson City Police Department officers speak to faculty members Monday during active shooter training at Moreau Heights Elementary School.
Jefferson City Police Department officers speak to faculty members Monday during active shooter training at Moreau Heights Elementary School.

Jefferson City Public Schools' teachers are doing more at the beginning of the school year that starts Thursday than preparing their classrooms - they're also learning active shooter training that encourages them to be more proactive in defending their students.

"Don't just lay there. Do something," Jefferson City Police Department Officer Chris Gosche told teachers at Thorpe Gordon Elementary School on Tuesday about how they should react to a possible armed intruder. Gosche serves as a school resource officer for the district.

Thorpe Gordon is one of a few schools so far that have been scheduled to receive law enforcement-led training prior to the start of the school year. All school buildings in the district are expected to receive the training sometime this year.

The officers at Thorpe Gordon ran the school's staff - not just teachers - through scenarios to demonstrate what and what not to do in an emergency situation involving an active shooter.

Above all, the training shows responses might have to be adaptable to a given set of circumstances.

Thorpe Gordon Principal Christopher Schmitz said there already are response plans in place, but no plan is perfect.

The training emphasizes the ALICE approach - alert, lock down, inform, counter, evacuate.

In some situations, it might be best to barricade and hold down in place. The preferred measure is to evacuate - get out and away from the area as quickly as possible.

As a last resort, counter means to fight back with any means available.

To fight back during the training meant throwing plastic balls at the officers who came in with a Nerf gun. It was amusing, but it also showed how effective throwing objects at someone armed with a weapon can be in interrupting their ability to concentrate and take shots.

"Don't consume yourself," Officer David Mays told teachers and staff about taking time in the future to think about what they would do in a different set of circumstances - being with students out in the hall or in the gym, for example, instead of being in classrooms - but still think about it.

Schmitz said constant thinking - without worrying about it - is how the training teachers got in August is going to stay fresh throughout the rest of the year.

The officers also encouraged staff to be proactive in reporting possible threats - better safe than sorry.

Schmitz said teachers and staff should be "eyes and ears at all times" and that the training empowered teachers with some experience.

In recent months, JCPS has enacted or expanded other security measures beyond scheduling the ALICE training, including trials of additional electronic security and alert systems in certain schools before those systems are implemented district-wide and budgeting for an additional school resource officer to patrol the district's elementary schools.

School district, law enforcement and other community leaders recently met with a group of Jefferson City High School students as the youth discussed their perceptions of school safety, and additional ideas and measures may spring from that.