Colorado schools have plan in place to hopefully stop next school shooting

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO, (KRDO)-- On yet another day of national tragedy, Christine Harms is grieving alongside the parents in Uvalde, Texas.

"It still makes me so sad."

Harms wants to be part of the solution, or any solution, to school shootings in the United States.

She and the Colorado School Safety Resource Center released crisis response guidelines for schools in April, hoping to stop future shootings, or at a minimum, reduce their harm.

"It was created because we know, unfortunately, that schools and school officials in Colorado have had a number of experiences responding to school tragedies," Harms said.

The plan puts a heavy emphasis on placing a threat assessment team in every school, something Harms says is already being done at most Colorado schools.

"It takes a look at students that may be at risk of violence and tries to find ways, and resources for those particular students so that they don't continue on a course that leads to violence."

The guidelines also encourage drills as well, though Harms cautions kids need to know it is just a drill. 

Another part of the plan is communication improvements. The guidelines say, "In many of the school and campus tragedies, communication is cited most often as the component that needed
improvement. This might have been communication with emergency responders, staff and students, and sometimes parents/guardians and families. Be sure communications systems before, during, and after the event are well-tuned and well-trained."

Harms elaborated on Tuesday, "We want to make sure that our school districts and individual schools have double-checked their communications plans. In most situations when there has been a crisis, the one thing that often falls short is the communication that goes between school members and first responders."

Harms wants teachers to be able to streamline the process for contacting authorities during an emergency too, not having to go through a chain of command to call 9-1-1 if they think something is wrong.

Lastly, aside from the guidelines, she thinks there's one key that could stop or mitigate harm in future school shootings.

"A door that locks from the inside without anybody walking into the hallway to lock the door," she says. "To have a pushbutton lock so that we could safely keep kids inside a classroom when something like this happens, I think would go a long way to saving lives."

Harms added that after shootings like the one that took place Tuesday in Uvalde, her team is able to update its guidance.

Right now, it's not mandated that schools follow the guidelines from the Colorado School Safety Resource Center, but the information is made available to any district that wants it.

KRDO reached out to area school districts to find out their plans for active shooter situations, and if the districts are already participating in drills.

Here's what we heard back:

DISTRICT 60:

"All schools conduct unannounced lockdown drills at the beginning of each school year. Our school district also tries to complete a full-scale emergency preparedness exercise each year working in collaboration with multiple first responders and other partnering agencies. The large exercises include only a small sample of students that have been given permission to participate. Although we have conducted drills involving active shooters in the past, the drill held in October of this school year was aligned with a natural emergency. D60 wants to be prepared for any kind of emergency and we work to test these practices throughout the year."

DISTRICT 11:

D11 does annual active shooter training in coordination with the Colorado Springs Police Department. Staff and school resource officers have a very close working relationship with local law enforcement. Some security staff is also former law enforcement.

DISTRICT 70:

The district has each school outlined with a safety plan for all emergencies and they do that at the school and the training is specific. Specific training could be for natural disasters or a different plan for things like active shooter scenarios. The district uses a school-by-school basis for the frequency of training, which is rolled out throughout the year.