Above, teachers took down one of the “active shooters” during the drill and was able to get the gun away as Sid Scott II held the weapon up and away from the so called “shooter.”

In the photo below, KSP Sargent Jamie Richards was playing the role of “active shooter” during Thursday’s training at the Clinton County Middle School with KSP Lieutenant Jeremy Johnson supervising the training event.

School is officially out for summer with the final day coming last Tuesday, and the 101st graduating class walking across the stage on Friday.

Teachers and staff reamined on the job last week and a ut teachers were still on campus last week with a training session scheduled Thursday and what turned out to be an eye opener for most of the staff in the Clinton County School District.

The Kentucky State Police arrived at Clinton County Middle School Thursday to give teachers and staff a controlled drill in order to provide knowledge of what to do if the school was ever under attack.

The training involved a classroom type informational session in the gym where slide shows as well as videos depicting other school shootings around the country were viewed.

After the presentation by Kentucky State Police Public Affairs Officer Nick Hale of the Columbia Post, staff members were split up into several groups and active shooter drills were carried out.

“We wanted to give them a couple minutes before the situation starts and once the situation plays out, they get a chance to see what went right and what went wrong,” Lieutenant Jeremy Johnson said. “The trooper will then give them some instruction what went right or what went wrong.”

With a school shooting this year in the state, at Marshall County, and with the recent events in Georgia and Texas, its always a good idea to have plans and training in place for such an event.

“This isn’t something we force,” Johnson said. “This is something we offer. The State Police has done this for years. We are always in schools. We have programs where we adopt a school. We send people to schools at random for no other reason than to make acquaintances and to be seen. That’s a huge deterrent for anyone. If a bad guy sees a trooper at a school and doesn’t know when he’s going to be there, then that’s a huge deterrent for this type of an event. By doing what we are doing, we are giving these folks a lot of options.”

Julie York, Director of Pupil Personnel, spearheaded the training session and went through the training situations as well.

She was really pleased at the outcome of the training and thinks it will really help if Clinton County Schools are faced with a situation in the future.

“Everything I got back, even a few emails yesterday, was positive,” York said. “It was so teacher focused and they loved it. It was so empowering for them and they loved it. I think it helped them work through situations and it showed them how they would react. It was all good.”

Once the group of staff and teachers were split up into smaller groups, there were five different stations in different areas of the building, however, the threat was the same for all five groups. It was a way to show people what would happen in different areas of a building with the same threat.

“I was in the first group,” York said. “I thought it was really good.”

Thursday’s event isn’t the only training teachers and staff go through during the school year.

York said when she earned her current job, she started making up scenarios and writing them down on post cards. Every so often, without giving notice, she will pop into a school and hand the card to the first person she comes in contact with.

That person must do whatever they are supposed to do depending on the situation on the card.

“It would freak people out because I would add the stress to the situation,” York said.

Before York started introducing the cards as a training device, schools would, and still, have mandatory fire drill and other drills to teach students and faculty the proper procedures during such an event. York said those drills are announced and students are told what is about to happen.

With the cards, no warning is given thus adding a level of stress to the situation which could or could not make people behave in a different manner.

“They really had to stop and think. It took so much breaking that ice,” York said. “There would be lots of times when we would get through the whole thing and I would ask, ‘Ok, so who called 911?'”

York said she has done this type of training for the past three years and it’s worked out great for the staff in the district.

“It’s kind of a drop in the bucket to what we talked about yesterday (Thursday) because until you introduce that stress to people and put them in that situation, they don’t process ‘what would I really do in that situation,'” York said. “You can talk about it all day long, you can practice it, you can make notes, you can have a chart and you can have a list … until that stress is introduced it doesn’t make a difference. That’s why when I talked with Trooper Johnson I thought that’s exactly what we need.”

York said the training they plan of doing in the future is endless.

“I think the more we do it the more people will buy into it,” York said. “It was super timely for us just because of what the nation is going through. That helped with the buy-in. People know this could happen tomorrow. It was kind of perfect timing. We already have a good plan in place and I think it got everyone on the same page.”

York said the troopers who worked the scenario gave her positive feedback.

“Everybody wasn’t perfect, but you don’t expect that,” York said. “The whole point is just processing for people. Some people did crazy things, but that’s what you want to happen. You want them to do the crazy things in the scenarios, so they can work through it and get ready.”

York said people who did the wrong thing actually learned from the event.

“I had people in my group who would freak out and freeze,” York said. “Sadly, it’s the time we live in. In the last three years it’s all changed, but our people are changing with it and it’s awesome. They are just doing what they have to do. Our principals are good and pro-active, we have good leadership and our schools are progressing every year. They are getting safer and safer, so we are in a real good spot. We are in good shape safety-wise.”

The Kentucky State Police held a training session Thursday, May 17, for the entire Clinton County School District, including teachers and staff, to help prepare in case of an active shooter on campus.