Increased police presence at Green Bay schools following Texas shooting

GREEN BAY, Wis. (WBAY) - In the wake of recent tragedy in Texas, schools in Northeast Wisconsin are taking an even closer look at safety measures.

The Green Bay Police Department and Brown County Sheriff’s Office provided extra officers at every school in the district first thing Wednesday morning. “We have a responsibility to keep our kids safe in our own school system, and so our investigations division, which is where our school resource officer program reports, this morning made sure that we had extra presence at all of the local schools,” Green Bay Police Chief Chris Davis said.

It’s just one of the extra measures the Green Bay Area Public School District is taking to ensure the safety of all children.

The district sent a letter to parents Tuesday evening with information on ALICE training (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate). Green Bay schools have utilized ALICE since 2012.

Chris Collar, Green Bay schools safety and security coordinator, said students participate in two security drills each year. Collar feels students and staff are well prepared in case the worst happens.

“We do the drills in our schools. We have our required safety drills every year. But then we also do scenario-based training with our students, where on a monthly basis they’ll have what’s called a ‘when-then scenario,’ they’ll talk about situations that they’re in,” Collar explained.

Just a few days ago, Collar said he took part in a training session to learn about situations exactly like what happened in Texas.

“From learning and understanding how that process works, from the time it happens and the resources with law enforcement, and fire and ambulance, and reunification. We were doing tabletop exercises, and then the very next day exactly what we were talking about happens.”

Collar said the district is always reviewing and looking at information as new things are released. They are ready to make changes to security protocols.

“Even with this situation, I’m sure there is going to be information that comes from it that can be used by districts to do something differently, do something better, or just make sure that you have things in place,” Collar said.

“Here again, this is another one of these incidents that happens in a small community somewhere and it’s a reminder that this kind of thing, unfortunately, in these times we’re living in, can happen anywhere. It’s a reminder to all of us, especially in the policing profession, that we’ve got a big responsibility to keep our schools safe,” Davis said.

Chief Davis said officers will continue doing everything they can to keep schools and children safe.

“We’ll keep that up as long as we need to to make sure that people not only are safe but that they can feel safe.”

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