Last month, public safety officials from LaGrange met with Troup County School System officials to discuss school safety. That discussion continued this week when Lt. Eric Lohr took a moment to share updated information about nation-wide active threat events. Close to 50 school leaders and administrators were in attendance at the monthly TCSS Administrative Staff Meeting.

The purpose of Lt. Lohr’s time with school staff was to share information that included:

• Familiarizing school employees with trends in active threat events.

• Helping school employees understand the importance of pre-event planning that focuses on threat identification and assessment.

• Suggesting plans and training that will minimize the loss of life in active threat events.

Lohr said, “It’s important for students and teachers to know that if they see something, they need to say something. The LaGrange Police Department has been trained in active shooter drills since 2000. Our focus is on preparedness.”

He continued, “All of the public safety agencies and the school system have to be prepared. That is why we are working together to create a school safety protocol.” The protocol is proposed to include items like:

• Focusing on preparedness.

• Reviewing safety plans annually with assistance from public safety officials.

• Performing quarterly active threat/shooter drills.

• Establishing a multi-jurisdictional threat assessment team.

John Radcliffe, TCSS Assistant Superintendent of Maintenance and Operations, said, “We have to be proactive instead of reactive. We are looking through our safety plans and making changes where needed. We have invited our public safety officials into schools so they can give us feedback on safety concerns. We have scheduled some real-world exercises to help train our school staff to be prepared if an active event occurs. We look forward to this continued collaboration as we all focus on preparedness.”