Searcy's seven school resource officers participate in safety tabletop and scenarios

Searcy’s safety discussion and exercise Friday was attended by administration personnel. including school principals and assistant principals. Hart told the SROs, “We’re going to put ourselves in your hands as we move forward with this. This is serious business. It is something we hope we never have to encounter but if we do, we want to be prepared.”

The school district also plans to have some training done for the entire faculty by an outside company sometime during the school year. And Hart said there will be a safety audit conducted as well.

Assistant Superintendent Dean Stanley said every campus has its school safety reunification plans done already. “It’s a shame we even have to have this type of a conversation,” Stanley said. “I think back when I was in school, I think this never crossed anybody’s mind that something like this could be something that happens in our society.

“... The kindergartner’s innocence has to be taken away because we have to be prepared and so just like we prepare for fires, we have got to prepare for active shooters and that type of thing. We really appreciate our SROs; now we have one on each campus that will be a part of us on a daily basis. We really appreciate the fact that the city has provided that for us and that we are able to partner with them.”

DeWitt said the SROs “are super excited about being a part of this school district and we never take it lightly.” He said with the school shooting in Uvalde, where 19 schoolchildren and two teachers were killed, “we saw some things that had to change and the thing is to have the administration say, ‘Yeah, we’re going to change’ and to have that administration show up at your Arkansas Safe Schools Conference and say, ‘Listen, I already got this together,’ that means a lot, and to have that partnership with you guys is totally unreal.”

DeWitt said not every school district wants to change, to have police officers on campus. “We’re parents to these kids and these kids mean a lot to us. I tell you, I’ll be damned if somebody comes to our school and think they are going to take our kids. Uvalde was 19 kids and we have to train. We have to train every time something happens.”

DeWitt said he watched an hour and a half video on the Uvalde shooting. “The guy [shooter] came down the road and wrecked his truck. He is out on the ground. Two teachers go out to meet him. The teachers are met with gunfire. They run back inside. This guy hops the fence.”

DeWitt said fences are deterrents “but they won’t stop anybody of they want to get in.” He said after the shooter hopped the fence and got on campus, the first door he goes to was unlocked.

“When we are on campus this year, we are going to check doors and we want them locked as much as possible.” He said that might not be convenient, but “we don’t teach for convenience anymore. Now we have to teach for safety. It’s sad that when kids go to school we have to worry about them being safe in their classrooms. That’s where we’re at. That’s the society we live in at this time.”

“Evil knows when things are fixing to take place,” DeWitt said. “When he [the shooter] walked in, there was a smile on his face like I have never seen in my life. He walks down the hall and the first classroom, there’s a couple of classrooms he passed by, but the next classroom that he walks by, the door is unlocked. There had been a work order for two months to get that door fixed.”

He mentioned the deaths that were caused by that and said, “I’m not letting that happen at this school. We are trained in solo engagement. If I go, I can’t promise you that I’m coming back but I can tell you this, if it does happen, tell my kids that I love them. If that happens, you guys are close enough to me, please tell them that I love them because that’s the choice we are making. It’s a life and death and I’m not letting 19 kids die.”

DeWitt said NorthStar EMS also wants to be a part of Searcy schools safety as much as “everybody in this room.” He said he went to an emergency medical services conference and they talked about if something happened at one campus, they would need two ambulances at one campus and another at the evacuation point. “They [NorthStar] are all for it.”

He said the Searcy Fire Department would be involved, too, mentioning that some of the firefighters are medics.

DeWitt said he took his daughter to the EMS conference and she said, “Dad, I’ve learned so much.” She said she “used to think that school is like prison.” DeWitt said it kind of is, but “if that’s what it takes to keep you safe, then we’re OK. It doesn’t matter what it looks like or what it feels like, you’re getting your education and your safe and that’s what parents are looking for to keep our kids safe.”

He mentioned the importance of evacuation points and reunification points, saying that when something like an active shooter happens at a school, the parents are coming to that school and he does not blame them whatsoever “because if my baby is at that school, I want my kid and I want my kid now.”

DeWitt said he has seen kids that have been trained enough to know better what to do than their mom and dads. “In the Ulvade shooting, there was a small probably around a 6- or 7-year-old kid that walked around and corner and saw this guy [the shooter] walking down the hall, he saw him walking with a gun and when he started shooting, he ran and hid. He went to the bathroom and hid from that guy and he is still alive. These kids know exactly what to do.”

Part of Friday’s gathering was to show school personnel what to do, with school shooter scenarios held in a classroom and in a hallway of the elementary school.

The importance of doors being locked was again hammered home by DeWitt. He talked about “avoid” for those far enough away from the active shooter scene that they could get away and off campus. “Defend” was another scenario where the shooter would be on the ground and the gun would be secured and put away in a safe place.

DeWitt talked about the importance of “getting the kids home safely.” During the reunification process, parents would have to present a physical ID of their child before the child could be released to them. DeWitt said the police would be right there through this process with their body cameras rolling.