Active-shooter drill coming to campus near you

Training for an event we all pray never happens takes place next week at Santa Fe Community College. The timing is apt, considering that the shooter-on-campus drill at the college is scheduled Wednesday.

The next day, Valentine’s Day, is the oneyear anniversary of the shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, where 17 students and staff died on a day that should be dedicated to love.

Our nation has become known for its mass shootings, many of which take place in schools. The violence is so routine that a shooting of five women at a Florida bank just last month barely raised national headlines. In November, a 27-year-old man died in a mass shooting at a California bar — he had survived an earlier mass shooting in Las Vegas, Nev., the year before.

Nowhere is safety more a concern than in school settings.

Across the country, students as young as 4 or 5 learn what to do if an active shooter arrives on their campus. Teachers are trained to lock the doors to keep killers outside. Parents wonder if they should buy bulletproof backpacks for their children as one more protective layer. Districts spend scarce dollars to make buildings more secure and harder to enter.

And schools, just like at Santa Fe Community College, prepare for the worst-case scenario. Just in case.

On Wednesday, college staff and students, along with city and county emergency responders, will practice what to do in a crisis as they take part in a scenario — “Operation Arroyo” — is designed to mimic the real thing. The exercise occurs from 9 until 11 a.m., with preparation and wrapup before and after.

Before the drills, those at SFCC are encouraged to watch the “Run, Hide, Fight: Survive an Active Shooter” video, showing what to do in case a shooter enters your workplace, school or public building. (The link to watch is www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VcSwejU2D0.)

The drill at SFCC is a full-blown exercise, although there won’t be an actor pretending to carry a gun. College neighbors should be prepared for the noise from emergency response vehicles on Wednesday. There will be vehicles on the roads leading to and around the campus.

Excuse the commotion. The exercise benefits more than the college community. For first responders, Operation Arroyo offers the opportunity to hone reaction skills when confronting a potential mass casualty event.

Students and staff at the school will go about business as usual. SFCC, after all, is a college. On Wednesday, students will be in class, at the library or bookstore, or perhaps in the cafeteria. College staffers will be doing their jobs. All of that, however, will be interrupted for the drill, to be announced on the public address system.

At that point, the people on campus should look for members of the CampusCommunity Emergency Response Team and the SFCC executive team, who can be spotted in their special vests. They will be directing traffic in the halls and helping ensure all goes smoothly. Debriefing sessions are scheduled after the drill. Counseling also will be available, if needed.

As the college’s Q&A on the drill states, “The skills you acquire will not only enhance campus safety, but also could help you survive an off-campus shooting.”

In a world with fewer guns and fewer angry people, a school day would not have to be interrupted while students and staffers practice avoiding being killed.

In the world we inhabit, such a drill is prudent preparation.