Active shooter response 'playbook' unveiled by Clay County schools, police in wake of Uvalde

Chaos.

That can be the aftermath of any critical incident like an active shooter in a school, Clay County Sheriff Michelle Cook said.

So to avoid that chaos and save lives if a gunman invades a school, Clay County law enforcement agencies worked with schools to develop a "customized response plan" specific to each, Cook said.

The Clay County Hazards Incident Response Plan, or CHIRP, goes beyond the security enhancements added there and statewide after 17 students and staff were killed in 2018's attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in South Florida. And it comes on the emotional heels of the May 24th shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children and two adults dead and 16 more injured.

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CHIRP now includes every aspect of Clay County's critical incident response, from how each school locks down in an emergency to response from law enforcement and emergency medical treatment procedures, the sheriff said.

Standing with members of every county agency involved in CHIRP on Monday, Cook promised those parents that this plan will "keep our kids safe."

"It combines those plans into a seamless effort to quickly and effectively neutralize a threat, treat the injured and reunify our kids with our families," Cook said. "We know that following any critical incident at a school, there is going to be chaos. The goal of these plans is to develop immediate action plans to control that chaos. We know we must work together as a team or we will fail our kids."

CHIRP is the result of "one team with one goal" — train school staff and public safety officials how to quickly handle an active shooter and keep students and staff safe, Schools Superintendent David Broskie said.

"One of our most sacred challenges is ensuring that all students are safe," he said. "... Increased security protocols have been in place since Marjory Stoneman Douglas. What you are hearing today is additional enhancement to all of those things that have been in place for a number of years."

Children dying in school attacks

Nationwide this year, there have been 27 school shootings resulting in 83 people killed or injured, according to Education Week, which has logged 119 school shootings since it began tracking such incidents in 2018.

The most recent was one of the most deadly, when an 18-year-old man orchestrated the massacre at Uvalde's Robb Elementary School, a facility with an active shooter policy. Law enforcement response saw 376 officers from the city, school district and state and federal agencies descend upon the Texas school but wait an hour before storming the classroom and killing the gunman.

Florida schools have their share of shootings

• On May 11, a 17-year-old boy was shot on the sidewalk outside Jacksonville's Andrew Jackson High School, initially listed in serious but stable condition. Police have only said that a light-colored sport utility vehicle pulled onto the West 28th Street side of the school as multiple shots were fired from it. The injured teen ran into the school for help.

• On March 9, three people were wounded in a drive-by shooting outside North Gardens High School in Miami Gardens, two hit as they sat inside a classroom, police said.

• On Jan. 19, 2019, the year after the Parkland shooting in Broward County, one person was shot and injured in a shooting at Seminole High School in Sanford, Education Week reports.

School shootings breed safety plans

Following 2018's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, schools throughout Florida deployed tougher security guidance and enhancements.

That included the statewide 2019 implementation of an armed guardian program to "aid in the prevention or abatement of active assailant incidents on school premises," according to state Department of Education.

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Clay County teachers already undergo monthly active assailant and lockdown drills, Broskie said.

But in the wake of the Uvalde shooting, Clay County administrators from every public school and several charter and private schools began meeting over a month ago with local law enforcement and public safety officials to begin formulating CHIRP. That created an active shooter response specific for each as more work has just been done to make schools less vulnerable to someone sneaking inside, Broskie said.

"Some of them include single points of entry into all of our schools, like additional fencing around all of them, electronic access points to get in and a robust camera system," he said.

Another update will see all school district and public safety agencies use the 8-month-old smartphone app called SaferWatch to immediately tell parents what's happening at their child's school if there is a critical incident. CHIRP will also use SaferWatch to tell them which of three options is being used to reunite them with their children, all worked out together with school district police, school administration and the Sheriff's Office, Cook said.

If a minor event happens at a school and the threat is over, parents will be directed to the usual pickup site, the CHIRP plan states. If police and fire engines are in front of the school handling the emergency, parents will be told of a modified site on campus for pickup.

"And a Level 3 is a catastrophic or ongoing event and it is not safe to bring parents to a school, we will take the kids to another location," the sheriff said. "All of that would be sent out on SaferWatch."

One issue that hampered law enforcement response at the Uvalde shooting was a breakdown of communications between responding agencies, according to a Texas House committee report on the shooter and officer actions. So interagency communication has been written into CHIRP for each school, adding how to manage active shooter aftermath along with law enforcement and schools training done now on how to respond when it happens, Cook said.

"God forbid we have something happen here, you won't see an issue with chain of command. We are working all that out," Cook said. "... We will know what to do on game day."

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Training continues

Following Monday's news conference on CHIRP, staff from Tynes Elementary School in Middleburg came to the emergency operations center for another update. After Cook told them that she needed staff input because "you really know your schools," district Safety Director Steve Mills reminded them on the CHIRP plan.

"It talks about some of the things we have already talked about, such as unified command," Mills said, waving the 100-page CHIRP manual as he spoke. "It talks about how the county should make sure we have reunification sites set up. If you get overwhelmed when you talk about reunification throughout the whole county, talk about an individual school like Tynes and it cuts down the anxiety."

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In Duval County, a combination of state security funding and the school sales tax paid for updated security technology including surveillance cameras, electronically locked doors, fencing and visitor sign-in technology, the district's online plan at bit.ly/3oJzJI2 said.

City officials are working with the district now to bring in a security company to evaluate the district's security protocols and provide guidance for potential improvements.

On July 13 Duval County School Police and other staff conducted training around Mandarin High School and Crown Point Elementary School, practicing procedures for safely uniting students and families in the event of a school evacuation.

dscanlan@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4549

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Clay County schools unveil active shooter 'playbook'