Nine hundred twenty-six. That is the number of times a gun has been shot on school grounds in the past five years. This number, along with the weekly reports about school shootings, has made the Hackley community worried.
Schools nationwide are rushing to prepare for an event like this. Many worry they either aren’t doing enough or are doing the wrong things. Does increasing the number of school drills suffice? Should there be an increased presence of security guards? How can we prepare?
There are a few key areas to consider when creating a safer school environment. First, you have to secure the buildings to make unauthorized entry more difficult—a process Hackley began implementing several years ago.
Robert Aldrich, Director of Operations and Campus Planning, explains the thinking: “By securing the exterior doors, we have added an extra layer of protection.”
The next most important step is an emergency protocol. There is no one concrete plan that can be relied upon. A shooter’s location and direction significantly impact strategy. For example, if there is concrete evidence that an assailant is at the Johnson Center, it might be worth it for students at the Allen Center for the Creative Arts and Technology to run away. If the assailant is on Akin Common, running won’t be an option. Certain conditions make hiding a better choice.
Since there are so many possibilities, Hackley has partnered with First Five Consulting to help make our campus more secure. First Five Consulting focuses on emergency preparedness. They create custom strategies, conduct security assessments, and train staff to improve emergency plans. With their help, Hackley has adopted a new protocol.
“We follow the SHELL protocol: Shelter in place, Hold in place, Evacuate, Lockdown, or a Lockout,” explained Mr. Aldrich.
From nearby disruptions and fire drills to on-campus events, this protocol provides a safe plan for any situation.
Mr. Aldrich also said that this consulting group trains “faculty and staff, so that they are prepared to give direction.”
This ensures school leaders are always ready to take charge and guide the students to safety. During a time of crisis, having strong and prepared leaders is one of the most important things a school can do to guarantee safety. Even with all this hard work, mishaps are bound to happen. A few months ago, Hackley experienced a bizarre lockdown drill. It seemed as though nobody knew about it, even administrators and teachers.
When asked about what happened, Mr. Aldrich said, “No one pushed the button [that activates the lockdown], no one sent the signal, it just started going off.”
This event was cause for concern. Was the security system hacked? Is it broken? Consequently, Hackley faculty got to work, trying to figure out what the problem was.
“We reached out to the network company, but to this day we can’t figure out what happened within the network,” Mr. Aldrich reflected.
Still, changes needed to be made. After determining the possible reasons for the error, Mr. Aldrich and his team worked to resolve findings and enact improvements. This is where the third area of consideration comes into play: creating efficiency during a crisis.
Creating efficiency can be done by reducing the amount of time it takes for the police to get to Hackley, deploying the Crisis Management Team (a group of security guards and staff who physically check the campus to secure the premises) quickly, or, in this case, moving the wifi network to “full battery back-ups”. This helps during power outages, which Hackley often faces.
Mr. Aldrich emphasizes the importance of practice and preparation. Students who practice safety drills diligently, with speed and silence, are better prepared to follow potentially life-saving directions during a real emergency.
It is clear that Mr. Aldrich, along with other Hackley administrators, is working hard to protect us daily. Their contributions have intentionally strengthened our community without disrupting our day-to-day activities in any meaningful way.
This is a topic many students feel uncomfortable sharing. Throughout the student body, there seems to be various levels of anxiety around the topic. Some students seem to think that there is a real risk of there being a shooting at Hackley, while others find it distant from their reality.
Regardless of how worried a student or parent is, Mr. Aldrich maintains that being prepared is important. One way of being prepared is doing drills thoughtfully. Fear hinders our critical thinking, leaving us to rely only on our instincts. By treating drills with the proper seriousness, strategy becomes second nature.
Hackley’s faculty is continuing to find new ways to protect us further. Students should feel secure knowing that necessary safety precautions are being taken. This includes learning a new protocol, locking outside doors, and backing up the security system.
