this morning in our series school matters we take a look at something that's unfortunately become a num report normal part rather of life for so many students in this country active shooter drills Beverly Gardens elementary school is right next to the wright-patterson Air Force Base that's in Riverside Ohio the school district began holding these drills shortly after the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting Beverly Gardens is also one of a small number of schools nationwide that actively trains and arms some of its staff vladimir duthiers of our streaming network cbsn is in Beverly gardens elementary school
to show us what actually happens in an active shooter drill what it looks like from inside the classroom glad good morning good morning here in this classroom we're going to see in just a few moments what it's like to go through an active shooter drill I'm in the fourth grade classroom of miss Stephanie Thornton in just a moment she is going to take her class through this active shooter drill it's something that sadly they've all become accustomed to many of these kids have been going through drills like this since kindergarten but their parents have never
actually seen one the drill will begin when the principal Kristie feels makes an announcement and I want to remind our audience again that this is only a drill after the drill is finished we're going to talk to the kids we're going to talk to the parents and the staff [Music] in your hand hold on girls okay quick quick all right make sure you have something in your hands all right boys and girls we've blocked the door now you should have something in your hands to defend you there's no reason to be alarmed I'm gonna be
right here to help protect you now we just need to sit quietly and wait for further direction all right I'm gonna let the office know that we're all here okay so let's talk to some of the students about how this all makes them feel I let you know that this is important I know that your mom has spoken to you let me get in here real close to you I know that your mom has spoken to you about why this is important what did you tell you oh she told me that it's not good yeah
this will happen yeah and that this stuff is going to take care of it good yeah who here is scared when they go through these drills Elijah why are you scared I'm scared because if something actually really happens it could hurt me or any one of my friends yeah Samar do you feel safe when you conduct these drills yes because if somebody were to actually come in here we would be safe because we know everything to do so you feel a little better you're doing them yes we're gonna talk to some of the parents there
it's here many of them have never actually seen these drills happen Arlene is here Arlene you've got several kids in the school district your son Gabriel is sitting right here this is the first time you've ever seen this yeah it's watching this I felt very emotional seeing what their real reality is day to day and but I also feel some reassurance knowing that the school is very prepared and they do the drills and it really seemed like the kids knew exactly what to do yeah Lisa we just spoke to your daughter Lila you are a
teacher here you conduct these drills but watching Lila Lila go through it how does that make you feel it's it's very emotional yeah just knowing that this is her reality this is our nation's students reality and you know that we have to have these discussions of why we're doing this and Lily understands why now she does she did not understand when you know we began talking about it and now she does understand the importance of it the seriousness of it and you know we've talked about current events and it's it's scary but also being prepared
as important and all these parents here have kids in the school district including Jasmine who has six kids I want to talk to the superintendent Chad Wiens I'm Chad come on over here and I want to just get an understanding from you these drills you decided to implement them in the wake of Sandy Hook that horror in Sandy Hook why well we decided to do this because the important thing is is it's my responsibility as superintendent to keep my kids safe every single day whether it's other people's children or my own children that attend our
school district and the big thing about these drills is we have to practice if you don't practice you don't develop that muscle memory and then our students don't know how to react appropriately if you saw the drill it was fluid our students know how to react and they feel safe based on that drill there's another component to this which I think our audience may not be aware of which is this is one of the school districts that's chosen to arm staff and teachers why have you chosen to do that we decided to arm our staff
because it's just an additional layer to school safety we realize that the Alice training is great but it's not enough our first responders can get here between three to five minutes in three minutes to five minutes so many things could happen in a school and I'm not willing to let that happen to my students there it's been a lot of controversy about this across the country and in this school district some people will say look you do the drills that's enough having guns in proximity of my child puts them at greater risk how are the
children how are the teachers and staff armed they're not carrying weapons on them in the classroom correct so we have safe strategically placed throughout the building for those staff members that have access to access to firearms and they go through extensive training I think that's a misconception it's not that we just allow staff to have firearms but they go through extensive training in order to access the firearm and respond to an active shooter their job is to go to the shooter they decided to do this as a volunteer and they know that they're willing to
risk their lives in order to protect our students here matter of local schools thank you very much so guys the reason we wanted to show this to parents across the country is many parents know that their kids are now sadly participating in active shooter drills just like the one we witness but they've actually never seen it themselves and so hopefully I mean what we were able to witness here is in than two minutes these kids went from doing their schoolwork to barricading that door and trying to protect themselves so hopefully parents seeing this we'll be
able to take some small comfort knowing that should the unthinkable happen that their kids will at least be prepared and guys I just want to say one last thing before we wrap this up this training is constantly evolving and later this year these kids will learn what to do should their teacher become incapacitated thank you very much I'm thinking ball is the right word thinkable is right and even though we all knew it was a drill it was very unsettling to see these kids this little having to barricade themselves and grab weapons which are pencils
and books to protect themselves it's very disturbing to see something so unnatural about a fourth grader having to re protect and into their classroom of students and put chairs and desks up against the wall and the door to barricade it right those of us who had to do had duck-and-cover drills you got onto the desk to see them cooperating to carry the desk and I don't know about the parents at home are watching this for the first time but you know it is very it is very emotional it was very interesting for all of us
to sit and see how disturbing it was because I think when we were coming up we had duck-and-cover we had fire drills but we never thought that we could actually be possibly killed or hurt to me we were going through the motions so we'd know what to do but I never thought even as a child that I could possibly lose my life to me but what I loved about what the superintendent said was that in this world we live in this gives them control this there is a plan there is something to do in this
world of threats that's a really kids were very articulate to now housing and I like that I like that Thank You van and thank you to the very well does well the parents and teachers
