Most everyone remembers their younger school years involving an occasional tornado or fire safety drill and now, unfortunately, also added to the list is a drill for an active shooter or intruder.

Performed on a regular basis, these drills allow for students and staff to practice a real-life emergency scenario with the ultimate hope they will never be needed.

Most recently, Crawfordsville Middle School performed a reunification drill where the entire building was evacuated and relocated to Crawfordsville High School for reunification.

Reunification would potentially be used in a variety of scenarios, for example, an active shooter, gas leak, earthquake, or other manmade or natural disasters. These scenarios would remove everyone and relocate them to safety.

For this drill, CMS Principal Brent Bokhart said there were a total of 606 staff and students evacuated from the school. The team planned the drill to use only five buses to simulate having minimal bus driver availability. In addition, Mark Melton, CCSC Safety Coordinator, said there were 25 parent volunteers, more than 20 CHS staff, about 15 CCSC safety team members and several first responders that were also present helping the drill run smoothly.

This is a fairly unique drill, but CCSC is at the forefront of providing top-notch safety preparedness alongside local organizations and law enforcement. This is the seventh time within the corporation that the reunification drill has been done.
Melton said “CCSC is most decidedly one of the leading schools in the area as it relates to reunification drills.”

Bokhart and Melton agreed that the drill ran very smoothly and following the drill there is always a debriefing meeting to evaluate, give feedback and use the experience to perform the drill better the next time.

A drill of this magnitude certainly requires a lot of planning, preparation, and manpower to coordinate. Bokhart also commended local community crisis teams, the Crawfordsville Police Department and Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department for their assistance with the reunification drill.