Jal Schools prepare with active shooter training
By John Earp
This past Monday, Jal School District hosted active shooter training for all employees. Over 80 school employees, including teachers, administrators, assistants, bus drivers and maintenance personnel all received over six hours of training in how to best prepare for the possibility of an active shooter. According to the K-12 School Shooting Database (kk12ssdb.org) 2024 had the second-highest number of school shootings since 1966, with 330 school shootings. 2023 holds the record for the highest number of school shootings, at 349. Tragically, the past four years have shown a marked increase in school shootings, with the number of shootings per year doubling in 2021 over 2020, increasing to 308 in 2022.
School staff were given training in overall security procedures and practices by GlobalOne Defense Solutions, a company based in Albuquerque. Instructors introduced themselves to the school staff, sharing their individual backgrounds in law enforcement and military service, as well as their individual expertise in martial arts and other self-defense techniques. An acknowledgement that the possible threat of a school shooting exists and is real was presented as crucial, with no school being exempt from the possibility. While it may be impossible to prevent the possibility of a school shooting in all cases, being prepared ahead of time is the basic purpose of active shooter training.
Staff were given the opportunity to practice their self-defense skills in simulated hand-to-hand combat, with instructors giving advice in how best to disarm or disable an attacker. Staff were taken into classrooms, where possible school shooter scenarios were given, with instruction in the best ways to minimize the risk of death or injury to students and staff. “Run, hide, fight” was presented as the basic approach staff should take in the event of a school shooting. The built-in security features of both Jal Elementary as well as Jal High School were touched upon, with instructors commenting on the superior degree of hardening against intruders that the campus has, combined with added security of having two school resource (police) officers always present on campus. These security provisions have been in place for several years.
