WCHS officials get safety training

A group Warren County High School educators and personnel recently attended a two-day seminar on security and emergency preparedness given by the state. The training was provided through a partnership between the Tennessee Department of Education, the Governor?s Office of Homeland Security and the University of Tennessee Law Enforcement Innovation Center, and was designed to train school officials how to operate safe schools.

Tennessee Education Commissioner Lana Seivers says the training provides important information on how to handle a variety of security issues.

?Tennessee educators are entrusted with the lives of nearly 1 million children every day,? Seivers said. ?Gov. Bredesen has directed the department to do everything in our power to prepare schools to respond to situations beyond their control, and we?re committed to meeting that challenge.?

The Secured & Prepared Schools in Tennessee security team training program was a valuable aid for the WCHS team, according to school resource officer Bobby Pennington, who attended the seminar.

?Here at Warren County High School, the vision for the students is that they have an opportunity to actively learn in a safe environment where they?re constantly challenged on all levels,? Pennington said. ?And that they have a positive working relationship with each other, the faculty and administration staff and the community.

?As a member of the safety team here, this training seminar gave us the opportunity to get together and brainstorm on better ways to prepare ourselves and our school in case of a critical incident,? Pennington added.

Experts in school safety from Knoxville and New York led the seminars. Gregory Thomas, director of school preparedness and planning at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University works with schools across the nation in assessing and improving security. Knox County School?s chief of security Steven Griffin is a certified instructor for the National School Safety Center. Lieutenant Jeff Stiles is the director of training for the Knoxville Police Department and a member of their special operations squad.

?Support from the Governor?s Office of Homeland Security will allow us to bring best practices in the areas of security and preparedness to schools across Tennessee,? said Mike Herrmann, director of school safety for the Department of Education. ?We want every school to be as secure and prepared as possible.?