Fitchburg teachers get active shooter training before start of new school year

By KATRINA KINCADE

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    FITCHBURG, Massachusetts (WBZ) — Teachers at the Sizer School in Fitchburg participated in an active shooter training before the start of the school year.

“If you’re a math teacher you’re not necessarily also thinking ‘Oh I’m going know what to do if an active shooter comes’, but that is part of what it means to be an educator in this day in age,” Sizer School executive director Michelle Paranto told WBZ-TV.

ProActive Response Group, run by former SWAT team members, taught early warning signs, medical responses such as how to pack a bullet wound, and what to do in the case of an active shooter to the group. The company, and school, say these incidents are happening more frequently and they want educators to have survivor mindsets in order for students to feel safe.

“We got tired of seeing so many response options that are very passive, hoping that the bad guy just doesn’t find you while you’re hiding under your desk or in a bathroom in the school. We know there are better options than that,” ProActive co-founder Andy Sexton told WBZ.

They invited us to see how the training works. We had to put on ear plugs for what the staff experienced, learning what a gunshot sounded like inside a school. ProActive trainers safely discharged one blank round in the hallway outside the cafeteria and then came inside room and did the same there. They also taught educators how to disarm a shooter if necessary, something that only took seconds to learn. Later, staff learned how to tie a tourniquet.

“We need to make sure that the average civilian knows what to do in that gap from the time the emergency starts until the cops get there to deal with it,” Sexton said. “I don’t care where you are in the country the cops are coming. If you call them, they’ll be there. Might take them 5, 10, 20 minutes depending on circumstances but they’re coming.”

That’s part of their training method. Preparing you for those minutes before emergency response officials can arrive. The school’s administrators know the first few minutes are crucial.

“I didn’t want us to have to rely on anybody else to have to do that so that they have the tools so if something happens, they know what to do in the moment,” Paranto explained.

Some people might be skeptical about training in Massachusetts, where we’ve haven’t had a mass school shooting since 1992 and have strict gun laws. But Paranto said that thinking is outdated.

“That thinking no longer exists. We are living in that reality and so we are preparing for that reality versus just hoping for the best,” she said.

Both the school and ProActive want parents to know while the training may seem scary, it’s for the benefit of the students.

“When they drop their children off every morning we know that that is a big trust move and so what I would say to them is we got this, we will keep your children safe,” Paranto said.

Sexton explained the idea of the training can seem daunting at first.

“We get a lot of hesitation starting with the class because it’s not a fun topic to discuss, nobody is excited to come to school and talk about violence in their school for the upcoming school year. But when they walk into that room after training today, they’re going to be empowered knowing that if something bad does happen they know how to respond and have a survivors mindset instead of a victim mentality,” he said.

ProActive Response Group also went through all of the safety protocols at Sizer School and gave recommendations on what they could improve on.

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