A 12-gauge shotgun firing blanks and smoke added realism to training at Great Falls High on Nov. 1.

Great Falls Public Schools employees district wide were training for the worst, an active shooter in their school buildings.

The district partnered with the Great Falls Police Department for the training, which was three-hours long at 10 schools in the morning and 10 schools in the afternoon.

To start, there was some lecture time on medical issues, such as using tourniquets or stop the bleed items.

Lance Boyd, GFPS assistant superintendent, told school employees afterward that those supplies are expensive and expire so if they don’t have them on hand nearby during an emergency, they may have to get creative using what they have available.

“You’re going to have to improvise,” he said.

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GFPD officers lead school employees through four different active shooter scenarios during the training and debriefed afterward.

At GFH on Nov. 1, Principal Geff Habel told the group that they may not hear shots on the other side of the campus or it may sound different depending on where they are in the building at the time.

Habel told employees, which included teachers, custodians, food service, administration and all building staff, to work with what they have where they are in the event of an active shooter or armed intruder.

The training highlighted some challenges with the historic building and Habel said they were working to address those issues.

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Boyd said that Brian Patrick, GFPS’ business operations manager, does building walkthroughs annually with a team that focuses on addressing any safety issues first, as well as facility needs.

Sgt. Katie Cunningham, who heads the GFPD’s school resource officer program, told the school employees that the basics won’t change no matter where they are.

She said that she and Det. Brett Munkres, the SRO at GFH, walk through the school constantly playing out scenarios in their heads.

Cunningham said an active shooter situation might not happen at school, but could happen at the grocery store, church or a home invasion.

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Countywide, she said law enforcement was working with the E3 smartphone app to have more information and communication with schools in the event of an active shooter or any emergency situation.

Habel said it at been at least five years since they’d conducted active shooter training at GFH.

Boyd said that it was okay for teachers to have conversations about an active shooter situation with their students and how they may be asked to help in an emergency.

He said he had those conversations at the elementary level when he was principal at Sunnyside and had the real world experience when a man was fleeing law enforcement, ran onto school property and fire shots at a Cascade County Sheriff’s Office deputy.

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Boyd said it might scare students when they’re doing drills, but the awareness and preparation will help in the event of an emergency.

Cunningham told the GFH group that if they didn’t like how they responded during the training to take time to think about it and mentally prepare themselves.

“If you’ve not thought this through in your mind,” she said, “you can’t go where your mind has not been before” and they need to be prepared to protect themselves and their students.

She also encouraged them to familiarize themselves with their spaces, think about how they’d barricade classrooms or get students out of the building.

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“You guys have got to know this building,” she said. “We can’t hold your hand through the whole thing. If the threat comes to your door, how are you going to end it to save yourself and your students’ lives?”

Cunningham said the training was designed to give school employees the principles and the thought processes to help them in the event of an active shooter incident, whether at school or elsewhere in the community.

She said that she expected some teachers might rearrange their classrooms as a result of the training and thinking about barricades and exits. As she said that during the debrief in the GFH auditorium, several teachers visibly nodded their heads.

Cunningham said that she and Munkres would assist teachers with that if they had questions.

Kylan Hallett and Dawn O’Leary are teachers at GFH and participated in the Nov. 1 training.

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O’Leary did the six-hour active shooter training at GFH about six years ago. It was Hallett’s first time going through the training.

They said it was helpful to actively work through the scenarios and respond under stress, but in a controlled, safe environment where “it’s safe to make a mistake,” O’Leary said.

The training also allowed them to ask questions as they go through it and they could stop and think rather than be in fight or flight mode the whole time, Hallett said.

“It’s a part of our job that we don’t want to have, but we have it,” O’Leary said.

Cunningham said that they work on stress inoculation for teachers and GFPS employees through the trainings and drills so that should an emergency occur, it’s not the first time they’re thinking through their response.

“If have to fight, what does that look like,” Cunningham said.

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After the training, a trio of food service employees at GFH asked Cunningham if they were allowed to use certain doors in the event of a shooter and said they’d walk their area more often to be aware of their space and access points.

Cunningham told them that yes, if someone is shooting run and use any door possible to get themselves and students out of the building. She told them that they wouldn’t get in trouble for breaking a policy, or a door, in that instance.

Cunningham told The Electric that many school employees, and others, think law enforcement will come take care of the situation, but “that’s just not the case. They need to realize and be empowered to take action” in a life or death situation, she said.

Statistics show that an active shooter situation can be over in three to four minutes, but it could take law enforcement five to seven minutes to arrive from the time of the first 911 call, she said.

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School employees need to be ready to defend themselves and students until law enforcement can arrive, she said.

It’s often a paradigm shift for school employees, she said, to think about how they could protect themselves and their students if there were an active shooter.

She said they want teachers thinking about ideas of things to have in the classroom that appear to be regular items but could use used to barricade doors, escape upper level windows or be used as a weapon if necessary. SROs will help teachers with those ideas, she said.