Police, school officials discuss active shooter plan

MARION – Thursday evening’s public forum to discuss the city school district’s recent safety and preparation efforts were not as widely attended as hoped.

Ryan Granlee, the father of a Taft Elementary School kindergarten student, said the turnout of less than 50 parents to the Veterans Memorial Coliseum was “embarrassing.”

“These are our kids. People should be expected; be responsible and show up,” he said. “This is something everybody in the district needs to be educated on, to understand and to ask questions.”

The event went as planned, however, as Marion City School administrators and Marion Police Department officers shared why they trained teachers and school staff on active shooter scenarios and how they plan to eventually teach the students to lock down, counter or evacuate the school in the event of an emergency.

Granlee said he supported teaching his “40-pound, 6-year-old” son “not to fight, but to survive.”

“ALICE is something that I’ve not heard of, but I had a basic understanding of what it was,” he said. “I wanted to see what the more in-depth version of it was.”

Police offered a more in-depth look at the ALICE concept at Thursday’s meeting, which was taught to city school staff on Jan. 28. “ALICE” is an anagram that stands for alert, lock down, inform, counter and evacuate. It is designed to give those trained a series of options and skills, encouraging them to make the best decision in a active shooter situation.

Holly Baker brought her two daughters to the meeting so they could learn about the methods as a family. She said Thursday’s discussion was the beginning of tackling an important topic for the community.

“I felt confident about the city schools and their desire to protect our kids as well as educate them,” she said.

“I’m pleased that they’re embracing the need to keep our students safe.”

George Washington Elementary School fifth-grader Chloe Baker, standing next to her mother and younger sister Hailey, will be one of the many students school and safety officials will work with next year as Grant Middle School transitions its newest students into the ALICE methodology.

“A lot of people are really concerned about the safety of children,” she said.

Officer Dave Dunaway, school resource officer for the city schools, detailed the ALICE methods while giving a very similar presentation to the parents in attendance that he gave to teachers and city school staff members back in January.

He discussed what the department believes a proper response to an active shooter should be, citing more than a dozen examples since the Columbine High School massacre in 1999.

“If it can happen in an Amish, one-room schoolhouse in Pennsylvania, it can happen in Marion, Ohio,” he said, referring to a shooter that killed five girls near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 2006.

The crowd gasped as Dunaway went over the gruesome details of the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007. He noted that classrooms where students were proactive in barricading, fleeing or countering the killer led to two deaths. Those rooms that acted passively led to 28 of the 32 deaths on campus.

“You can see the difference between doing something and not doing something,” Dunaway said.

Steve Fujii, director of school operations, invited those in the audience to “be involved and ask questions” after Dunaway’s PowerPoint presentation. He and Maj. Jeff Clewell were well-prepared in fielding a dozen questions, adding more clarification and detail to their emergency plan.

“We need community involvement, as always,” Clewell said. “We need the community to be informed. If one of these events happens, this is how we need the community to help us.”

Granlee said he had a list of nine questions prepared for Fujii, Clewell and other officers.

“I don’t know that they’ve addressed it to my satisfaction, but I don’t know if you can,” he said. “That’s my kid; that’s my only child. I don’t think anything concerning his safety, when I’m not around, is ever going to be satisfactory.”

nbechtel@marionstar.com

740-375-5155

Twitter: @NickMStar

How to Help

The Marion Police Department and Marion City Schools are encouraging the community to get involved by taking the following steps:

•Support the ALICE method, under which Marion City School staff members were trained in January.

•Secure firearms and weapons at your home. According to Officer Dave Dunaway, more than two-thirds of reported school shooters used a weapon taken from their own home.

•If you see something suspicious, say something. A 24-hour hotline answered by Ohio Homeland Security analysts can be reached by calling or texting 844-SAFEROH (723-3764).

•You also can call the police department at 740-387-2525 or the school district at 740-387-3300.

•In the event of an emergency, students evacuated from a school will be picked up at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Other vehicles will not be allowed on school property.