Recent school shootings have caused a lot of discussion among people across the country, most centering on how children can best be protected.

Perry Police Chief Eric Vaughn says he and his officers are all trained extensively to deal with active shooter situations at schools, though thankfully it’s something they’ve never had to use. He believes the Perry schools are presently well equipped to prevent shooter situations, thanks to building security and the daily presence of Officer Josh Sienkiewicz, the School Resource Officer. In addition to the safety measures, Vaughn says they try to teach students and teachers how to handle shooter situations themselves. They use ALICE training, which stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate.

“ALICE kind of helps the students and the teachers be a little more active in their own safety. We teach things like not only shutting doors, but barricading doors, so a shooter cannot make entry into a room. Whether that be with locks on the doors, or wedges on the doors, or something like that, but also moving file cabinets and bookcases in front of a door. So it makes an active shooter or a threat like that more apt to kind of move on from that situation.”

One thing that’s been discussed at a national level for school security is arming teachers, but Vaughn doesn’t believe that’s the most ideal option. “We ask a lot of our teachers now to do a lot of different things, to put on a lot of different hats. I don’t know if we need to put that hat on them, too. Plus, they’re going to have to carry that weapon every day, be trained with it, and worry about the security of that firearm throughout the day, every day, on top of their other duties. I just don’t know if that’s the best solution. That may be a solution, something to be in the discussion, but I really don’t think that that’s the best solution.”

To hear more from Vaughn, listen to this Tuesday’s Perry Fareway Let’s Talk Dallas County program at RaccoonValleyRadio.com.