back of their minds when they schedule tactical training for their drivers. However, the emphasis is on the more common daily threats of stu- dent-on-student violence, weapons on a school bus, student attacks on bus drivers and dealing with irate parents.
CHOWCHILLA ON THEIR MINDS
Bret Brooks, senior
consultant for Mis- souri-based Gray Ram Tactical LLC, specializes in a variety of train- ing courses for school bus drivers, including violence detection and prevention, and coun- terterrorism. He said interest in school bus driver training on han- dling violent situations is growing. “For some districts, the thought has always been in the back of their minds,” Brooks said. “But generally speaking, most districts have not come to the realization that they need this type of training simply be- cause the instances were so few and so far be- tween, and the (instanc- es) weren’t in their home state. Now, over the past couple years, there (has been) an increase in vio- lence in schools, and the news media is reporting more on it.” Brooks said the entire
spectrum of violence, from fistfights to the ac- tive shooter, is becoming more common, especially in light of last month’s tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. “We’re not coming in
and teaching bus drivers and teachers how to be SWAT team members,”
he said. “Our most pop- ular training courses are the verbal and nonverbal indicators of violence training, and then the verbal de-escalation tactical techniques.” Chowchilla is a major
part of the reason why Chris DeWitt, transpor- tation director for Ben- tonville Public Schools in Arkansas, called in Gray Ram Tactical. “Tat’s the scenario I wanted (Brooks) to discuss,” he said. “If someone gets on your bus or hijacks your bus, what do you do? How do you react? How do you talk to that person, or, do you even talk to that person?” DeWitt acknowl-
edged that while the vulnerability of the bus may not stop some acts of violence, they could be limited. “We’ve told our driv- ers that if someone gets on the bus and they’ve got a gun or a bomb, as soon as they come to a stop, pull the keys and throw them out the win- dow as far as they can,” DeWitt said. “If they are going to kill you, they are going to do it whether you drive them where they want to go or not. We don’t want to drive them into a school where they have the potential to kill thousands of other kids as well.” An ace up DeWitt’s
sleeve is the local police SWAT team, which trains annually on every type of bus in the dis- trict’s fleet. “Tey go through with
our mechanics, so they know how to disable air brake buses, kill the power and entry points,” DeWitt said. “Tey also fire simulation rounds.”
£ Andy Davis (left) and Jim Thuss of Gray Ram Tactical discuss de-escalating tactics to utilize while on the school bus to transportation personnel.
www.stnonline.com 43
Jennifer Simpson,
transportation director for Missouri’s Wentzville School District, said she retained Gray Ram Tac- tical to prepare her staff for daily occurrences as well as the unthinkable. “Wentzville is a pretty
quiet community,” Simp- son said of the St. Louis suburb. “But you never know. Sometimes you hear about things that happen and they are not always in the big cities. Te threat is a reality in our country right now, so to think it couldn’t reach a small town like Wentzville is naïve.” She added that it is
important bus drivers know what to look for. Knowing how to de-es- calate a situation was as much a part of her focus as a security piece,
because some of those skills transfer. “Knowing how to
de-escalate a child who is upset can be just as important as knowing what to look for when it comes to a security threat,” Simpson contin- ued. “To me, it’s all part of that big picture. ” In his training,
Michael Dorn, executive director of Safe Havens International, includes research-based concepts used in the military, law enforcement, aviation, emergency medical care and other industries, in which people have to make fast decisions with incomplete information, and are under pressure that if they do something wrong, somebody may die. “Some of those
include controlled æ
“The threat is a reality in our country right now, so to think it couldn’t reach a small town is naïve.”
—JENNIFER SIMPSON, WENTZVILLE SD, MISSOURI
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