School districts all have emergency plans and protocols, and thankfully don’t have to use them very often.

West Central Valley Superintendent Rusty Shockley says that some emergency protocols are fairly common knowledge, like what to do in case of a fire or tornado. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio that even though plans for these events are common, no two plans are the same.

“Each district has a district response plan, and then each building has additional response plans based on things that can happen in a school.”

This is especially apparent for less common protocols, like when there is a threat made against the school, staff or students. Shockley explains that besides local law enforcement agencies and some school administrative staff, no one knows the entire plan, especially the public. He adds that this is to help keep students and faculty safe from additional threats as they react to the one reported. Recently, West Central Valley had to enact an emergency evacuation protocol, and Shockley talks about how it went.

“Yeah, with our incident here at the high school, you know, I met with (Adair and Guthrie County Emergency Management Deputy Chief) Jeremy Cooper and Chief Reha (with) the Stuart Police Department. At the conclusion of it, you know, we talked through how everything went. We all thought it went well. There’s always adjustments. This isn’t something that you use all the time, and it’s not something you can really do a lot of drills with, but it’s certainly something that is probably beneficial to go through. And I think it was beneficial for us to go through it, just for the fact of now we know a few things we would do differently.”

The recent incident at West Central Valley was thankfully unfounded, and students and staff were able to return to the building once law enforcement had made sure everything was clear and safe.