School shootings prompt emergency management changes

By Katrina Barnett

VCNC reporter

At Ventura College and throughout the community, safety is coming first.

Since a 14-year-old boy in Washington named Barry Lokautis opened fire on his math class in 1996, violence and security awareness in schools across the nation were heightened, but last year the record-setting shootings at Virginia Tech, in which 33 died and 15 were injured, became a glaring reminder to scholastic institutions across the country that training for emergencies that exceed the basics of first aid are necessary.

Ventura County’s community colleges have opted into this preparation, and during the months of February and March they are restructuring their emergency management by way of a training program for administrators, faculty and staff.

The District Service Center has brought in outside consultants to help reassess what needs to be done.

Currently, the goal is to coach on-campus authorities and to update emergency preparedness manuals. Included in this training is the groundwork for dealing with violence on campus, weather-related emergencies and terrorism.

Three major training sessions have occurred thus far, with another one scheduled for Friday, said Richard DeLaO, the district’s interim chief of police. Part of this training includes a tabletop exercise, in which each campus undergoes a simulation of a possible emergency, DeLaO said. This lets faculty and staff put their training and modernized expertise to use.

The simulation should occur sometime between April and May, DeLaO said, adding that each tabletop exercise should challenge the trainees with “What we would have to do if we really were experiencing that specific emergency, such as an earthquake, terrorist attack or shooter on campus.”

DeLaO said he hopes to create and enhance security features on campus with the help of modern technology. He also would like to see mass notifications – messages sent out to cell phones and PDAs – put into action as well as voice broadcast, surveillance cameras, and upgrades to the emergency blue phones in the Ventura College parking lots. And he would like to update the campus police radio system so that it might be functional in case of a natural emergency, like a massive earthquake, during which the current radios might lose power.

Assistant Dean Jerry Mortensen is preparing such suggestions for change for the Community College Campus’s Safety Manual. They will be presented to the board of trustees within the next 30 days. A cost estimate is sketchy, DeLaO said, but should be a more firm number by next week.

Police and fire departments in Ventura, as well as the Red Cross, are expected to be on hand to supplement the needs of the college.

Some students are ambivalent about the news.

“I haven’t really heard about it, but I’m not sure how worthwhile it would be,” Kendra Valesquez, 19, said.

Still other students, while somewhat skeptical, are hopeful about the emergency training. “People who are desperate enough will be able to do damage no matter what,” Kathryn Mueller, 17, said. “But maybe knowing that our faculty will be more prepared will deter them. I hope so – it’s a scary world.”