Manatee County Schools Prepare for Worst

The Manatee County School district trains its teachers, staff and administrators to protect students in the case of crimes in or around the schools.

They school system has a plan in place for any sort of emergency. Principals and administrators know exactly what to do if a crisis happens in or near the schools, said Mike Barber, a spokesman for the Manatee County School district.

In the case of any emergency, teachers and adminitrators secure the school first, meaning the entire campus is shut down as far as access in and out. Students and teachers stay in classes until give the all clear. While students go into lockdown, administrators call 9-1-1, that emergency call is followed by a call to the county's risk management team. That second call triggeres a team of people at the school district to gather resources and information to help deal with the crisis.

In the case of a lockdown, school employees wait for the police or deputies to give the all clear before allowing students or teachers to leave their classrooms.

In Manatee County, schools have been placed on lockdown for crimes that have usually happened near the schools. Each time a lockdown occurs the team implements and runs through the plans that are in place.

Much like the Connecticut Elementary school where the shooting took place Friday morning, the Manatee County school district has a system in place for keeping dangerous people off of school property.

Visitors to all of the district's campuses should have only one avenue of admission which takes them directly through the office area. Visitors must check in when they come to the school. In Manatee County visitors go through an electronic check in through the RAPTOR system, which conducts a background check on everyone who comes into the school. Visitors must provide a driver's lices or state identification and once scanned, the system automatically conducts the check and saves your identification to the system.

In case of an emergency on or near the campus, once authorities are notified and the district's risk management team is informed, the Superintendent of Schools gathers his own team to get all of the facts about exactly what is going on to prompt a lockdown. School board members are also notified.

Once they have a clear picture a call — a sort of reverse 9-1-1 — goes out to parents who have children in the school. Other area schools are also alerted.

School officials keep in close contact with law enforcement throughout any emergency, once the danger is past authorities give the all clear before teachers and administrators let the students leave their classrooms or other protected areas.

Barber said the school district works diligently to gather facts before notifying parents in the case of a lockdown.

"The first priority is to secure the school," he said. "We get the word out to parents as quickly as we can, but we want to be cautious so that we are dealing with actual facts, while getting the message out as timely as we can."