By Mike Hutchens, UC Schools Communications Director
Union City, Tenn.–At Union City Schools, an ounce of prevention is indeed worth a pound of cure.
“Students can’t learn if they don’t feel safe, and preparation in the instance of any possible incident goes a long way to ensure the safety of everyone in our schools,” said School Resource Officer Raphe Whaley, who recently oversaw evacuation drills at both UC High and Middle Schools.
“I have no doubt our schools are extremely safe, especially in this day and time.”
Both students and faculty, along with administration at each school, exited their respective buildings in both a timely and orderly fashion – well under the targeted time that was budgeted for the announced drills.
The groups traveled in single-file lines and gathered at the school’s multi-purpose building, well away from the mock dangers inside the school(s).
Designated school personnel arrived at their destination and gathered students to be monitored until given the all-clear signal.
“The purpose of an evacuation drill is to ensure that all students and staff are removed from the facility in an orderly and efficient manner in the event of a real-life situation such as a bomb threat, hostile incident, etc.” added Whaley, who has served as an SRO for Union City Schools for 19 years and has been in law enforcement for 29 years in all. “These drills are conducted to facilitate planning and implementation of updates.
“I thought our people did a great job of listening to instructions, knowing where they were supposed to go and getting there.”
Whaley and UCMS Principal Lance Morgan did a “sweep” of every room in the middle school building as part of the drill there.
Whaley said there are no unannounced drills conducted in Tennessee schools anymore and that the days of simple total lockdown are over.
“The state Department of Education has changed that because that method has proven to heighten the number of casualties in the event of an active shooter. There has been a lot of data collected in school incidents that support that,” he said.
The officer feels like Union City Schools do a great job of balancing safety without overwhelming their students with the issue.
“Safety of our students and staff is obviously priority number-one, and we feel like we have a great situation in that regard,” Whaley added. “We have a happy medium. It doesn’t feel like a prison where kids feel suffocated, but there is no open-door policy where just anyone can walk into the building and classrooms any time they want to.
“It’s safety first, but in a learning environment.”
UC Director of Schools Wes Kennedy has ensured Whaley has had multiple training sessions in both safety and evacuation procedures, and more programs will be implemented for both faculty and staff in the coming months.
Among those is ALICE – Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evaluation – a program that will be the focus of in-service in January.
“Our main thing is student and faculty safety,” Whaley concluded.
“And I know it’s a top priority for everyone in our system.”
Photo by Mike Hutchens
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