Middletown City School District conducts active shooter training in anticipation of school year

MIDDLETOWN, Ohio — Middletown City School District worked with first responders to simulate an active shooter situation before classes started.

“Today was about school safety, which is always at the forefront of our mind,” said Superintendent of Middletown City School District Marlon Styles. "(Police) Chief Birk and his team did an unbelievable job with the exercise. More importantly, today was about finding ways in which we’re best prepared and areas where we can improve safety measures for our students, staff, and community."

Chief David Birk said they want to be prepared in case there was ever an active shooter on campus. Police used simulated gunfire to make the drill feel as real as possible. He added no students or teachers were on campus during the training session, so police could focus on their response time.

“We wanted to get some timing down, what our officer's response was to the scene,” Birk said. “Definitely found that we have some improvements to make. I think the big thing is entry into the school. We have to be quicker to responding, to get into the school to get to the threat.”

Even though it was a simulation, Styles said the experience was moving.

“We love our children. We love our staff. We love our community,” Styles said. "As relational as we are with each other and as trusting and as loving as we are to know that a tragic incident such as this would involve potential injuries or casualties, it’s emotional."

Styles said safety is a priority, and they wanted to take a proactive approach when it comes to these situations.

“This simulation gave us a real-time view of any type of mass incident that might happen," Styles said. "So it wasn’t inspired by Uvalde but definitely, the intention around school shootings in the country inspired this activity to take place."

Birk noted the way police respond to active threats is different now than it was two decades ago.

“We used to train, when I got hired 25 years ago, we had a quad system, you had to wait for four officers. Over time that quad went to a diamond shape, then it went to two officers, now we train our officers. The first officer on the scene has to go to the threat. How many kids, how many staff members, how many family members are being hurt while we're delaying to go in there,” Birk said.

The police chief said this training exercise allowed officers to learn the layout of the school and practice communication.

After the active shooter drill, Middletown High School tested its communication protocols. All students between first and twelfth grade go back to school on Aug. 15.

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