The district decided last week to spend part of Monday's staff workday on a two-hour active shooter training session, discussing their emergency plans and watching training videos.
"You can never fully prepare for something like this," Superintendent Richard Bain said. "In light of the stuff that's happened here recently in our nation, I think everybody is a little more sensitive and we felt like it was a good idea."
Across Southeast Texas, at least three districts were investigating real or rumored threats of school violence, and several others increased security in the wake of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
A Kirbyville CISD student was arrested and charged with making a terroristic threat after allegedly saying that he wanted to "kill everybody" during a class discussion, according to Kirbyville Police.
West Orange-Cove CISD and Warren ISD both said they were investigating threats they believed were rumors that proved false.
"Every time one of these things happens, sometimes there's copycat issues or kids who try to pull a stupid stunt," Hardin-Jefferson ISD Superintendent Shannon Holmes said. "We have to be a little more cognitive of what's going on."
"Anytime something like this happens, they all go back and look at their plans," said Danny Lovett, Executive of the Region 5 Education Service Center. "They're asking, 'Is there something we can tweak?'"
Preparing for a crisis
Schools are required to have crisis management plans. Lovett said he knew of several districts reviewing theirs this week. Others have made physical changes to their schools to make them safer.
At Monsignor Kelly Catholic High School in Beaumont, wooden shutters can be closed to cover the glass windows on each door, and wooden bars can be raised to keep the doors from opening, an extra way to lock down the building in the case of a gunman on campus.
Principal Roger Bemis said the homemade devices were installed this summer, modeled on more expensive options available for sale.
While it's "very very unlikely that it would ever happen, it's a possibility and a reality," he said.
Preparing for a lockdown is also a factor in the construction of most new schools, Lovett said. He pointed to Sabine Pass School, which has internal doors connecting classrooms so students have ways to get out if the main halls are locked down, he said
"That is something that is designed into a lot of new schools," Lovett said.
When Silsbee ISD opened its new elementary school in 2016, "we did take some security concerns into consideration," Bain said.
That took the form of limiting the number of entryways and requiring card access for exterior doors - if a door is opened, the district will know whose card was used, he said. "The only way to get in there is through the office."
Hardin-Jefferson's Holmes said the district discovered during two drills over the past three years that the high school and middle school building were not as secure as administrators hoped.
Through two mock shooting events, designed to test response times and the school's lockdown plans, "we learned what parts of the building we thought were secure but weren't, we learned where we had locks that didn't work, we learned where some blind spots were," he said.
While most schools have regular presentations and drills of their lockdown plans, Lovett said full-scale mock shooting events like H-J ISD did are less common. In addition to rehearsing what teachers and students should do, those drills also test law enforcement response time, Holmes said. They used a starter pistol to mimic the sound of gunshots inside the school and make it more realistic, he said.
Locked doors and limited entryways are the most common school security measures cited by local districts.
Beaumont ISD recently upgraded the vestibles at 16 campuses to create "controlled access entries," spokeswoman Nakisha Burns said.
The armed option
Other districts have armed personnel as additional security. Starting this fall, BISD's two high schools will each have four armed officers, they announced last week.
Silsbee ISD has an armed officer daily at each campus, Bain said. The district has had one stationed at the middle and high school for "years and years," he said, but decided to add another position at the elementary school last year.
"It's just extra added security," he said.
"For those who can afford it," it's a helpful resource, Lovett said, because the officers have specific training in working on a campus and interacting with students.
Others rely on local law enforcement to respond quickly to violent situations.
Some districts have appointed marshals, who are specific employees allowed under state law to have a weapon in the school's gun-free zone, as long as it is in a safe or on their person at all times.
Rural or remote districts without easy access to local law enforcement are most likely to take advantage of the rule, Lovett said. High Island and West Hardin are the only districts in Region 5 with marshals, he said.
While the aftermath of a school shooting often prompts nationwide calls to arm teachers to better protect their students, Lovett said he'd "need to see research and numbers" to judge that suggestion's merits.
"Here, I think it's not a good situation," Bain said of Silsbee. "I've lived in West Texas, a half hour from any law enforcement, and I would have definitely wanted to look into it."
"For our situation, in a city with a police department and sheriff's office, officers are available and are already armed," he said, saying it could cause problems in a crisis. "You've got to be careful in that case. When law enforcement rushes into the buding, anyone with a gun that's not wearing a police uniform is going to get shot," he said.
Kelly's Bemis said he couldn't see a Catholic school "ever seriously considering" arming teachers as an option and said Beaumont Police are close enough to address any concerns about response time.
"At this point, I think we need to trust in local law enforcement to handle these issues," Holmes said.
The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office said officers have increased patrols at schools in the county since the Florida shooting.
LTeitz@BeaumontEnterprise.com
Twitter.com/LizTeitz
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