Police chief reassures school board about Oct. 6 disaster drill

Fairfield Chief of Police Julie Harvey, Jefferson County Health Center representative Mike Sellers and Fairfield High School student Abigail Messer addressed the school board Monday about the disaster drill planned for Oct. 6.

Jefferson County has been planning the disaster drill for several months with the Fairfield school district. It is being coordinated with Homeland Security and will involve Fairfield?s fire and police departments, Jefferson County Sheriff?s Office, Jefferson County Health Center and first responders. Keokuk County and Ottumwa paramedics have asked to observe.

About 15-20 people, representing the various local law enforcement agencies and medical teams, were in the audience Monday.

?I understand that a school shooter is not the exercise everyone is comfortable with,? said Harvey. ?But I would rather practice it with hundreds of hours of planning going into it.

?The fatalities will not be students. Adult staff will volunteer for this role. The shooters will be college students we bring in. We can use the high school drama kids to apply make-up for injuries, and we?ll have a team on site for anyone who gets scared, and we?ll debrief.

?I commend the school district for helping with these plans,? said Harvey. ?And as the recent school shooting in Ohio demonstrates, it can happen anywhere.?

Last month at a Jefferson County Board of Supervisors meeting, Craig Steward, a paramedic specialist and training officer with Jefferson County Area Ambulance, had asked the supervisors for funds for the Saturday emergency drill.

?The goal of the exercise is to tax as many groups to the full extension of services, such as communications among law enforcement and responders, medical personnel at Jefferson County Health Center, transportation of casualties and communication with the community,? said Steward. ?The exercise has six major goals and 10 objectives.?

The county is due for a mass casualty drill this year according to Homeland Security, Steward said. ?The last one we did was a tornado drill in April 2007.?

The stakeholders and representatives from the area agencies involved have held planning meetings, with more to come.

?If there is a lockdown, do students ? and staff ? know what to do, where to go?? asked Sellers. ?We want students to know what to do.

?Some high school students will participate and receive [simulated] injuries. We do this with make-up to make it as realistic as possible for our first responders. No students will be used as fatalities, and we?re not working to traumatize anyone.?

Messer, a school-to-work student with public health, has sat-in on a few of the planning meetings. She said she hadn?t thought about it before.

?In a school shooting situation, I?d have absolutely no idea what to do,? she told the school board. ?I thought about one of my classrooms. There?s just the one door. I believe the drill is a good idea to train staff. And it emphasizes to me that I need to prevent bullying in school. This drill is to ensure our safety. Knowledge is power.?

Harvey said she knows many have the fear that staging a shooting scenario will plant the idea for someone to act it out.

?But studies show that?s not the case. This will be a specific training day, on a Saturday, and involve about 100 kids,? Harvey said.

Board member Jeri Kunkle said she wouldn?t want students to know all that happens in an emergency response.

?No one kid will see all the parts,? said Harvey.

Students will be assigned a certain role and section of the building, added Sellers.

?Each section will have it?s own part; each entity has a drill requirement to fulfill, and we can train together so we know how to work together. But students will be limited to their own section,? he said.

Kunkle thanked the agencies represented for being proactive.

In other school board business Monday the board approved:

? Superintendent Art Sathoff, business manager Kim Sheets and director of auxiliary services Fred McElwee to each have the authority to approve needed change orders in the middle school HVAC project up to the amount of $10,000 without prior approval from the school board. This will help eliminate the need to stop construction if a change order is needed. All change orders will be reported to the board; any change order costing more than $10,000 will need prior board approval.

? Replacing composition and American Literature as two separate required courses with English 11, a full-year course required for all juniors, beginning with the 2012-13 school year.

? Accepting the financial audit report for fiscal year 2011 received from Nolte, Cornman and Johnson.

? Fairfield Middle School teacher Judy Bailey?s retirement at the end of this school year.

? The second reading of board policy series reviewed.