GREENVILLE, Mich. – School officials in Michigan’s Greenville Public Schools are modifying their response plan for school intruders, and they’re giving teachers the go-ahead to do whatever it takes to protect students, rather than leaving them at the mercy of a gunman.

Greenville school officials will soon discuss with parents and the community a subtle shift in the district’s mentality in dealing with potential school intruders that’s becoming more common in school districts across the country.

National school safety experts, meanwhile, are cautioning districts against focusing too much on the unlikely event of an armed gunman in schools.

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“You don’t want just to be these sheep … these deer in the headlights,” Todd Oatley, Greenville High School assistant principal and district safety liaison, told EAGnews. “We’re telling teachers it’s okay to take action. It’s okay to move people to create more safety to stay alive. We’re trying to prod teachers to think ‘what if.’

“We’re not advocating arming staff or going out and hunting (school intruders) down, but there is a growing contingent nationally” that is moving toward a more proactive approach to such emergency situations, Oatley said.

The tragic events at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 prompted district and local public safety officials to reconsider how they approach school shooter scenarios in Greenville. Oatley and former Greenville Public Safety officer Gary Valentine, who was previously the district’s on-site police officer, talked with teachers at the start of school about options beyond the run-and-hide-in-place approach Greenville and other districts have used for years.

It marked the first time the district has explicitly given teachers permission to defend their classrooms and students, by any means necessary, in the event of an attack. Oatley and Valentine explained ways to slow intruders, such as barricading doors with desks or other equipment, and what teachers can do if a shooter eventually gains access.

“If someone is entering the room, they can use a fire extinguisher or throw chairs,” Valentine said. “Basically what you’re doing is delaying their entry.”

“We want to either discourage (an intruder) from coming into the classroom or delay his entering … to give law enforcement time to help,” he said.

Valentine first worked with Greenville school officials to develop plans to protect against school shooters as part of a college research project in 2001, based on the lessons from the Columbine High School massacre in 1999.

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Valentine said he’s followed the trends in school safety in the years since, modifying the response plan after analysis of each new school shooting. After retiring from Greenville Public Safety in 2012, Valentine launched a new school safety consulting business – SchoolCom 608 – and is working with several other schools and districts in the area to ensure they’re prepared for the worst.

“I’ve done staff training in the past, but this is the first time in bringing this type” of proactive approach, Valentine said. “The message now with many school trainers is following similar lines.

“It’s something that’s becoming more mainstream,” he said of training teachers to take action, if necessary.

“The school is their sanctuary … and that’s the same as your home and you have a right to defend your home,” Valentine said. “When someone breaches that safety and intends to do harm … you have the right to defend yourself and your students.”

Other changes

Greenville school leaders also used part of the proceeds from a recent multimillion dollar bond issue to make security upgrades to the district’s schools.

They included the installation of security cameras in the district’s elementary schools – which were already in place in its other schools – as well as new entrances for several buildings that make it harder for uninvited guests to gain access, Oatley said.

“What we’ve done in a lot of buildings … is put in a new set of doors that force you to come through the main office. I see a lot of other buildings … putting in” similar diversions, he said.

“It’s such a simple concept,” Oatley said. “You always get some riffraff that wants to come in and it’s really kept a lot of that out of our buildings.”

Greenville officials said the district regularly upgrades its radio system, which lets them talk up to 25 miles across the district. School administrators also keep special 800mhz radios ready – which connect directly with state police or the Department of Homeland Security in Lansing – in case of a serious disaster.

“We’re very proud of our communications system,” Oatley said.

Valentine is expected to train district bus drivers on potential emergency situations that can arise while transporting students, and will also help conduct random emergency drills required by the state, Oatley said.

Greenville school leaders believe many parents and taxpayers are unaware of the district’s emergency response plans and other safety measures, so they’re conducting a forum April 23 to discuss school safety and field questions from the community.

“We’ve never really briefed the community,” Oatley said. “So we’re going to kind of share with the community about where we’ve been and where we’re going” with school safety.

“We have a lot of things in place, we just don’t advertise and we’re trying to make people feel better about the safety of their kids,” he said.

Teachers, meanwhile, seem to be embracing the do-whatever-it-takes mentality for the most part, Valentine said.

“I think because of the volume of school shootings and the training that’s offered … there is a little more buy-in” from teachers, he said.

Less is more

Michael Dorn, executive director for Safe Havens International – the world’s largest non-profit school safety consulting firm, said it’s important to give teachers and other school staff options beyond hiding in place, but training programs that focus too much on the last-resort options in school shooter scenarios can be problematic.

“There’s a variety of theoretical approaches that are not validated by any research or testing that are being put in place … since Sandy Hook,” Dorn said. “A lot of them go against what the research tells us about … life-and-death decision-making.”

Attacking an armed gunman as a last resort “sounds logical to a lot of people because they don’t understand life-and-death stress,” he said, but research shows “people don’t apply the training in the way it theoretically works.”

Dorn said that discussing what teachers can do to slow an armed intruder who is breaking into a classroom can be beneficial, but stressed that teachers are far less likely to encounter that type of situation than other school violence, such as a knife- or crowbar-wielding drunk or an armed student threatening suicide.

Law enforcement officers and others who regularly deal with life and death situations receive simulated training in proportion to the likelihood of a potential scenario, but many school districts focus too much of their emergency training on protecting against school shooters, he said.

The less schools train educators on the last-resort type attacks against potential school gunmen, the better they actually react in real-life situations, he said.

“What we are seeing in our controlled simulations and real life events is people are misapplying the training and attacking when they shouldn’t be,” Dorn said.

When people train for a variety of potential emergency situations “their brains can adapt to the particular situation,” but research shows those with school-shooter intensive training are less likely to make the correct move, he said.

Greenville teachers discussed school shooter scenarios with Valentine and Oatley at the beginning of the school year, but did not receive specialized training.

Law enforcement and school safety experts are largely divided on the benefits of school employees using force against school shooters in general, Dorn said. There are a growing number of schools embracing the more proactive attack-if-necessary approach, but “no evidence to say those techniques work,” he said.

What experts agree is effective is ensuring teachers have a key to their classroom, and can lock their doors quickly. Other basic safety measures, such as making immediate contact with the school office when danger is suspected and teaching educators to make independent decisions based on the circumstances, have proven successful in most cases, Dorn said.