Havre schools hold third school safety forum

Havre Public School held its third community safety forum of the year Thursday and each public school principal provided commentary on procedures their school does.

In the midst of a string of mass shootings in schools and other locations in the past several years, Havre schools have been evacuated and, in one instance, put into a closed-campus status due to shooting threats at the schools.

Havre Middle School Assistant Principal and an ALICE — Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate — Certified Trainer Jeremiah Nitz said that throughout the past three to four years, he and the schools resource officers have put together a standard response protocol

 “What it is, is the expectations and procedures that are standard in every building in the district,” Nitz said. “If I had my way, every business, every facility, every rest home, etc., would use the same thing, so that way we are all speaking the same language. All of our staff, all of our students are completely trained in this program.”

Nitz said the school district has adopted this program from the “I LOVE U GUYS,” foundation.

He added that in any given situation the school district has five standard responses kids can use ranging from walkout, lockdown, evacuate or hold-in-place with each one having its own procedure.

Nitz shared a PowerPoint presentation of what he said he presents to students and staff, which the students see on the second day of school.

One item in the PowerPoint was an image of a sign saying, “school is on lockout, no one comes in or out,” meaning Havre Police Department, sheriff’s office or someone has determined there is a threat outside of their building.

“What we do is, is we immediately secure the perimeter of the building, we post watch every door and exit of the building, I have secretaries just simply monitoring the building nonstop,” he said. “Parents can’t come in, student’s can’t go out that’s just how it works. The threat outside is greater than what we’re going to release any student into, when we’re in lockout that’s how that works.”

Next in the presentation discussed the term lockdown. He said the only time the school does a lockdown is in the event of an active killing, someone dangerous being in the building or someone that hasn’t started killing but has been identified with a weapon in the building. Teachers know the building can lockdown at any time.

He added that at the middle school and other campuses, students are trained on what to do in an ALICE situation as well as the staff.

“Every building is the same, 100 percent, we have created a document similar to this that hangs on the wall and it’s got directions for what to do and you’ll find that document everywhere in the district and it’s the same,” Nitz said. “That is really the powerful part of this, you don’t think about it until you realize we might have a substitute teacher who works in five different buildings, if they hear lockdown, if they hear evacuate, they’ve all been trained, they know what that means and they know how to respond.”

But, when it comes to the elementary school, teachers may present the plan differently.

“I think one of our most important things is that we want to look at school safety in an age-appropriate manner and also in a way that students aren’t ever afraid,” Lincoln-McKinley Primary School Principal Holly Bitz said. “We want to make them prepared and give them that gift that we don’t want to make them nervous or scared, and so the more we can do it in a calm way.”

Bitz said, at the elementary schools, the teachers are assigned to read a book called, “I’m not scared ... I’m prepared because I know all about ALICE,” written by Julia Cook, for the students to know what to do and for them to listen to their trusted adults.

Sunnyside Intermediate School Principal Carmen Lunak said they review protocols and drills regularly, holding eight drills a year.

“Every time we have a drill, that’s an opportunity for teachers to review the protocols,”she said.

Highland Park Early Primary School Principal Mark Irvin said four of those drills are fire drills while the other four are drills for hold-in-place or lockdown situations. At Highland Park, that’s when they cover “I’m not scared ... I’m prepared because I know all about ALICE,” he added.

He said the book is age-

appropriate and understandable for elementary kids.

“I think it’s important at the elementary level, because they are going to review these throughout their school career and maybe this is their first exposure to drills and what it’s like,” Irvin said. “One of the differences is, especially for the younger kids in my building particularly, probably a little bit for Holly Bitz because she’s second and third grade, Carmen’s kids are a little older, so they can understand a little bit better, but it’s very teacher-led. Our specific drills the adults really control the situation because it can be kind of scary and the kids want that direction and need that.”

Havre High School Principal Edward Norman said they have evolved their process of how ALICE works at the high school due to a situation the district took very seriously that last year and went through protocol with all the administrators in the district involved and to figure out what they were doing after the threat.

“We just increased our presence of law enforcement administrators and we did bag checks and stuff, for a certain amount of time,” he said. “We tasked our teachers to make sure they are talking to their kids, answering questions in that way and we talk to staff about what we are doing and why we are doing it.”

“I think one of the key features with all of our safety programs is our our relationship with local law enforcement,” Havre High School Vice Principal Pax Haslem said. “We have a student resource officer who is a Havre police officer, but he works in the buildings, which is Jordan Chroniger, we have a great relationship with him, but even with the sheriff’s department, the Border Patrol and with the state troopers, we have a really great working relationship with all of them.”