The Columbia School District Tuesday morning held an active shooter drill at Columbia Primary School.
The drill was conducted as part of the Mississippi School Safety Act, which was passed in May. The bill states all school districts are to hold an active shooter drill within the first 60 days of the school year. The bill was enacted in response to recent school and mass shootings.
“It went well for the first one,” Columbia Superintendent Jason Harris said. “You’re always going to find ways to improve. It’s one of those practices where you hope you never play the game” he said.
But then later Tuesday afternoon the need for such planning became evident when the the primary, elementary and Jefferson Middle schools were put on a soft-lockdown following possible gunfire in the city. A soft lockdown is when all external doors are closed and locked, and no one is allowed to enter or leave. Movement inside the school is limited, but classes continue as normal.
“We just did a drill this morning,” Harris said. “The students were safe the entire time. The soft lock-down was just a precaution.”
Police Chief Michael Kelly said, “All the children are safe, and the matter is under investigation.”
At the drill Tuesday morning, Principal Heather Singley said she was very pleased with her teachers’ response. They were very quick to turn off lights and lock their classroom doors.
At 9 a.m. a call was made to dispatch alerting dispatch there was a shooter at the front door of the primary school. By 9:04 a.m. members of the city police department were on scene followed by members from the sheriff’s office, fire department, civil defense and a representative from MEMA.
Marion County Emergency Management Director Aaron Greer used a drone to get an aerial view of the situation.
Inside the school the teachers locked all their classroom doors, covered the glass in the doors and had the children be quiet. Parents were made aware ahead of time of the drill.
Singley said the school started working with the students last week to give the children enough time to understand so no one would be scared when it was time for the drill. The school has staff members to not only to keep the students in rooms but also to check where a student might hide if scared to ensure the student is taken to somewhere safe.
“If this was a real situation the school would be closed for the rest of the day. The school would be thoroughly searched to ensure that every child is accounted for,” Kelly said.
Upon entry law enforcement and firemen made their way through the halls checking to see doors were locked, windows on the doors were covered and the hallways were empty.
“We are going to look at did the school identify the threat and execute lockdown in a timely manner? Were all doors locked, lights off and students out of sight? Did the administration have a good working knowledge of the decisions to make during and after the active shooter scenario had taken place? Evacuate or not? Where to evacuate and how to evacuate and when to evacuate. That is what we are looking for on the school side of things,” Kelly said.
“Today we went over some things that we knew that we would probably get right. This is a building block,” he said.
Harris said this will not be the only the school in the district to do drills. Others will be done adding different components and situations including natural disasters. The goal is to keep building and becoming more efficient he said.
Kelly said he was very pleased with the speed in the response. In addition to the quick response of the responders coming on scene there is already an officer at the school he said.
“That is very important when you have crisis start and you have somebody right there to be able to address it,” he said.
Kelly said, “When we drill we expect some failure so we know what needs to be addressed so if an active situation happens, there will be no failure.”
