When an intruder, especially an armed one, enters a school, most teachers and students' natural instinct is to run and hide and wait for authorities to arrive and deal with the matter.
However, this is not the response taught at Barrington's Station Middle School in Illinois. The school has teamed up with the police to teach both teachers and some students the proper way to deal with unwelcome intruders.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Barrington Police Chief Dave Dorn recently led an after-school session this month to prepare teachers for an upcoming active shooter response drill. School staffers who are willing to "fight back" against intruders are now being trained to respond properly in different kinds of scenario.
"These presentations are more geared for the workplace, where people are not responsible for students," Dorn said. "If you feel like you want to get kids involved for their safety, that's your choice. But remember, they are going to revert back to their training, which in situations like the NIU shooting, the students didn't fight back because they had never been told it was a viable option, and they were college kids."
The training was developed by the city of Houston and is called "Run. Hide. Fight." It is now being promoted through videos posted on the websites of the FBI and the US Department of Homeland Security.
The "fight" component is a last resort measure that teachers, and in some instances even students, must use to "take down" an active shooter or attacker.
Not all teachers seemed to welcome the training, especially applied technology teacher Brandon Duke. "It's so different from what we've learned before," he noted.
One lesson taught during the training is that if a teacher is not in a classroom with students when an active shooter enters the school, the students should immediately evacuate the building using the nearest exit.
But Duke said this option runs counter with his instincts as an educator. "As teachers, we're trained not only to teach our students, but to stand up for and protect them, too," Duke said. "Some students might not be mentally or emotionally able to handle a drill like that. It will be up to the administration as to what level this training should begin, and they'll need to hear the opinions and thoughts of the district's parents before they decide what's best for our students."
Some local school districts also have qualms about teaching older students about how to fight armed intruders.
But Barrington School District 220 Superintendent Brian Harris is all for it.
"If you're talking about first-grade students, this is not going to happen, as the age of the kids must play into this," Harris said. "But I think that 'fight,' the third option, is something we can talk about with older kids, even if it means telling them they can throw erasers to distract an intruder, it's all about getting more time for the police."
