An intruder running through a local school with a gun pointed at students isn’t something anybody wants to think about.
But Porter County Sheriff David Reynolds wants everybody involved with schools in the county, including students, teachers, staff, administrators and parents, to do just that, and know exactly what to do if that happens.
On Friday, he and Jesse Harper of JBH Productions unveiled a new video, “One County, One Protocol,” that will be used for training in all of the county’s public schools and will be ready for a full rollout next month. Harper filmed the video at schools throughout the county over the summer.
The video comes on the heels of the Nov. 28 attack at Ohio State University in which an assailant rammed his car into pedestrians and slashed passersby with a knife. He injured 11 people and was killed by police.
Reynolds said the campus used the “run, hide, fight” model which also is in the video, and added news clips from Ohio State showed a classroom door barricaded with chairs.
“That is a result of education,” he said. “The first officer (on the scene) neutralized the situation but everybody was obviously doing what they were supposed to do.”
The video is part of a four-pronged approach to school safety that Reynolds said also includes apps to alert any nearby police if there’s an intruder in a building; a consolidation and simplification of the safety protocols for all seven of the county’s school corporations so they are consistent, and can be outlined on posters, themed with each school’s colors, in each building; the video, which will be used for training, including students in middle school and older; and tabletop scenarios that can be tailored to different situations and school buildings.
“The whole objective is the safety and security of our kids and the community,” Reynolds said, adding the goal is educating, training and empowering the school community if there’s an attack at a building.
The county’s public schools are already using the apps and a growing number of childcare centers and other schools are signing up, he added.
Harper said he and Reynolds watched almost 100 other training videos as he came up for the one for Porter County, adding the 20-minute video was “a really huge production.” Most of the training videos featured someone getting shot, Reynolds added.
“We wanted to set a tone of urgency but not scare the kids,” Harper said, adding there are a few tweaks the video needs before it will be ready next month.
The video was $17,000, a cost split between the school corporations and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area.
The video focuses on three aspects of school safety: a lockout, when students are kept in their classrooms and the classroom doors are locked because there’s a threat nearby; a lockout, when there’s a threat in the building and students are told to run, hide or defend themselves if necessary; and an evacuation, when students are accounted for and later united with parents.
The Valparaiso Community School Corporation will begin training with the video in January and has already ordered its posters, said Julie Lauck, associate superintendent there.
“Everyone will be trained,” she said, adding she recommends all counties adopt a “One County, One Protocol” standard, something other counties aren’t doing to her knowledge. “It’s one common language and one common procedure.”
Reynolds and Lauck said the video and training could serve as a deterrent for attacks by students because they will know the procedure in place if something happens at a school.
Porter County Prosecutor Brian Gensel said he’s seen the video three times and gets choked up each time, but it’s important that everyone’s on the same page if a crisis unfolds at a local school.
“I think that response, the kids will take it seriously,” he said, “and having everybody doing the same thing, that’s really important.”
Amy Lavalley is a freelance writer for the Post-Tribune.
