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Today, faculty and staff at Palestine’s Westwood ISD took part in several active shooter training simulations. While students had the day off, KLTV 7 JD Conte takes us inside to see how they’re preparing staff members for something they hope will never happen.
Faculty and staff at Westwood ISD trained today in the event of every parent and teacher’s worst nightmare. “We want teachers and staff to be able to identify what gunfire sounds like inside,” said Westwood ISD Police Chief Mike Hoyt. “Identify that and get their students locked down in their classroom to protect them and then wait for law enforcement to intercede.”
Today, many teachers played the roles of students going through a full stimulation from shots fired to parent reunification. Teachers wore the name tags of real students that their peers were responsible for.
Superintendent Wade Stanford says teachers used the school safety software Raptor to keep track of where their students were. “Teachers were put into the situation in which they had to check roll in the classroom, they check roll on the bus and then when we were at the reunification side, they had to check roll again.”Stanford says the district was also sending real-time updates to parents using Parentsquare. “Throughout that whole entire drill, letting them know each phase that we were in and what kind of communication they would be receiving in a real situation.”
This day is the culmination of several trainings that district has held, including first aid, parent reunification and defending the classroom, Stanford says these trainings allow for feedback from staff and parents. “We’re training on a day that students are at home and we’re preparing for what we hope never occurs.”
