In the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut, school shootings in December, Advantage SCI invited teachers from several local school districts to a seminar on the ways to react and respond to an active shooter situation in their schools. With an attendance of teachers representing high school, middle school, and elementary grades from El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale, Culver City, and Manhattan Beach, the teachers were grateful for the wealth of information they received on this most sensitive topic.

“We have been given several pointers from Advantage SCI that we were not aware of before this seminar,” said one of the attendees. “All of our questions were answered so thoroughly. This was so informative and posed lots of questions for me to ask of our administrators and to share with them on this most important topic of school shooting response.”

The seminar covered the various profiles of active shooters and what to look for as potential “alerts” when a questionable situation exists in a public place. The teachers were informed of the recommended coping mechanisms to enlist if faced with an active shooter situation in their environment, such as noting exits from the facility; to stay as safe and secure as possible if there is a situation evolving; and to not attempt to take down an active shooter except as a last resort.

The teachers were eager to learn of the things about which to be prepared, such as knowing an escape route they can take from their classroom, to hide out and block the hiding place they choose for themselves and their students, and to silence cell phones, and to place the 911 call as soon as possible with as much information as they can gather about the situation to share with the dispatcher.

“We want to learn more strategies, with a longer seminar,” commented another attendee. “While some of the recommendations may seem really obvious to those trained on responding to an active shooter situation, we learned so much to help us feel that we could handle a situation if we were ever faced with an emergency at our school.”

Pete Lee, Vice President of Operations and a retired U.S. Army Special Forces officer, related to the teachers that a key point for them to bring back to the school district administrators is how future renovations of their schools can assist in preventing active shooters from easy access to facilities.  Lee explained, “When architects design buildings in the future, especially school campuses, there will now be a keen awareness of protecting the occupants from active shooter situations in every way possible.”

Advantage SCI is a leader in providing consulting services for counterintelligence, cyber security, and operational support solutions for the government, public sector and private companies. In an effort to share the wealth of expertise in these areas with local communities, this Active Shooter Seminar for Teachers is the first in a series to be presented over the next several months.