LA Schools Emphasize “Run and Hide” Protocols in Live Shooter Training for Teachers

Schools in Los Angeles are preparing for the possibility of a school shooting by training teachers to … play a glorified version of hide and seek?

In this year’s back-to-school teacher training, the Los Angeles Unified School District is instituting protocols for the staff in the event of a live shooter situation like the one that took the lives of 20 small children and 6 adults, in Newtown, Connecticut last December.  It appears that LAUSD is following the US Department of Education’s suggestions of “run and hide”.

Prompted by last year’s massacre in Newtown, Conn., Los Angeles Unified is instructing administrators and faculty in how to keep students safe if there’s a gunman on campus.

Steve Zipperman, a retired LAPD captain who is now chief of the district’s police force, said principals participated this summer “live-shooter training” that will be shared with teachers in the new school year.

While he declined to share details that could jeopardize campus safety, he said school leaders are being guided on “how to decide in the moment how to save as many lives as possible.”

We provided them with alternatives and choices that may be available to them should an active shooting occur, and a traditional lockdown may not be the most appropriate decision,” Zipperman noted. “This may mean the rapid relocation of students, either on or off-campus.” (source)

Many people are lauding the “proactive” approach of this type of training.

However, is it truly proactive to instill victimhood in an entire generation of children?  To have them practice cowering beneath a desk?  To teach them to be fish in a barrel for anyone who might enter the school with a gun?

In contrast, wouldn’t a truly proactive measure include…well, action, like the school in Arkansas that is arming a select group of teachers and preparing them to defend the children in the event of an active shooter?  When presented with the standard advice, Superintendent David Hopkins  of Clarksville, Arkansas said, “The plan we’ve been given in the past is ‘Well, lock your doors, turn off your lights and hope for the best’. That’s not a plan.”

Under Hopkins’ guidance, some of the school’s staff members will receive 53 hours of professional training.  The school will be posted with warning signs.

If you had a vendetta and planned to shoot up a school, which one would you choose?  The one with the easy pickings of frightened children hiding under desks, or the one with armed staff members who were trained specifically to take you out as quickly as possible?