School Staff Receiving Active Shooter Training

The Baltimore County Police Department is collaborating with the school system to provide staff with more training in dealing with potential school shooting situations.

The heightened concern comes after an attack at Perry Hall High School and a gun incident at Stemmers Run Middle School earlier in the school year.

"We are working on making sure that the leadership of the schools, principals, fully understand our protocols," said Dale Rauenzahn, executive director of school safety and security. "We have trained for many years on the active shooter scenario."

Baltimore County police spokeswoman Elise Armacost said situational awareness that leads to a school shooting scenario and response training is now available to administrators by the department's homeland security section.

Rauenzahn said once school leadership has been trained, it will be passed along throughout the sytem.

On February 20, all school principals received the first training, which educated them on situational awareness and overall active shooter process. In March, they will have a scenario based training to demonstrate the appropriate responses from the school, school system and emergency responders.

Still, Rauenzahn stresses that students and staff have already been trained in implementing the four universal responses to emergency situations—evacuation, alert status, lockdown and severe weather safe area.

"This was demonstrated at Perry Hall High when students and staff used the evacuation and lockdown universal responses to respond to that emergency situation," he said.