Evolving safety plan in place at local school

Prepared at the local level

The horrific school shooting incident in Connecticut last week sent shock waves through the valley. Like Crested Butte, Newtown is a scenic town where no one would expect such tragedy to occur. People who live here have friends and relatives living in the Connecticut village.
Many of our local students and their parents were upset at the news from back east. If it could happen there—could it happen here? The unfortunate answer is yes.

Crested Butte Community School principal Stephanie Niemi and district superintendent Jon Nelson said as horrible as the situation was in Newtown, Crested Butte is not immune. But the school and its staff are prepared as well as, if not better than, almost any school in the country.
“We have an extensive Four-phase Emergency Management Plan that we talk about constantly,” said Niemi. “We have worked closely with local law enforcement and emergency responders and we feel prepared.”
“We are NIMS [National Incident Management Systems] compliant,” added Nelson. “That’s a system of universal systems of dealing with emergencies, whatever that emergency might be. Whether it’s a shooting or a flood, NIMS lays the groundwork and the language of how to deal with the situations. We’ve practiced the plans extensively throughout the school district.”
Nelson admitted no one can anticipate every situation but said, “We feel prepared. All of the local police and emergency personnel are on board and we all know the same language. We are unfortunately aware that tragedy could happen here.”
Crested Butte Chief Marshal Tom Martin said local law enforcement has policies, procedures and plans in place to deal with such situations. “We are trying to have a presence around the school, especially for the next few weeks. We’ll continue to do what we do and we’ll even have an officer visit the school.
“We’ve practiced tactics in and around the school,” Martin continued. “We’ll continue to do that and we’ll likely do another practice in January. We are aware that anything can happen, even here. It’s certainly not probable, but anything is possible.”
“We aren’t taking any of this lightly,” Nelson said. “We are talking even now about how to make things better. We are trying to live and learn from the tragedies that happen elsewhere.”
Nelson mentioned how that after the Columbine school shootings, tactics changed. Police take less of a wait-and-see strategy. Things shift and new lessons are learned from each incident and the local district is conscious of staying on top of any changes in order to keep the school safe.
The district has school psychologists who monitor students. When the Newtown tragedy took place, the school psychologists immediately sent out tips to local parents on how they could talk to their children about the incident.
“We are always working with the local marshals and police,” Niemi said. “The officers know this building really well. But before something like that would happen, we have measures in place to prevent such incidents.”
“In terms of preparedness, we like to think we are there,” said Nelson. “We don’t take this or any tragedy at a school lightly. We treat it all very seriously. We have the internal procedures to ensure the safety of the students and staff.”
“But we are always evolving,” added Niemi, “and that’s just an unfortunate reality.”