Academy offers educators lessons in police work, school safety

Shelly Anderson, an Apple Valley first-grade teacher, hoisted an orange plastic toy rifle and put herself in the shoes of a police officer responding to a knife-wielding parent in a school's administrative office.

Her partner, Rosemount High School teacher Alicia Blaz, raised a toy handgun as the pair shouted at a video screen, asking the man to drop his weapon as a secretary cowered nearby. Moments later, two virtual shots dropped the actor after he pointed his knife at them.

"I think I did pull the trigger," Anderson said, after initial confusion.

Anderson and Blaz are among the roughly two dozen teachers from the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan School District taking part in a four-week Teachers Academy with local law enforcement authorities.

The officers aren't trying to train the teachers to use deadly force. But they do want the teachers to learn about the challenges police face when they respond to emergencies. It's the latest partnership between law enforcement officers and educators at a time when, they say, preparing for a shooting on campus is as necessary as fire and tornado drills.

The academy is a shortened spinoff of the typical citizen academies that introduce residents to police procedures. This version caters to school officials, with instruction by officers from all three cities in the district. The sessions cover topics from the use of force to surveying a building for suspects.

Joe Marshall, an Eagan detective who is coordinating the Teachers Academy, said it is modeled after a previous Burnsville program. The four-hour session at a training facility in Rosemount was the second of the group's four meetings this month.

Though the program is meant to give the teachers perspective on policing techniques — one exercise included a brief jolt from a Taser — preparedness for school violence was on the minds of many participants.

In September, a shooting at a high school in Harrisburg, S.D., wounded the principal. And October has been a deadly month on college campuses, with shootings in Oregon, Arizona and Texas killing 12 people. An FBI study published this year identified 160 active-shooter incidents that killed or wounded more than 1,000 people between 2000 and 2013.

"Teachers are on the front line," Marshall said. "They didn't ask to be put here."

Eagan police Sgt. Brad Ramthun coordinates active-shooter drills in his city's schools. The drills can include playing audio of gunshots to train teachers to identify the direction of gunfire.

Ramthun and several of the teachers he met this week noted the evolution of preparing for school shooters.

Lockdowns — shutting doors and turning off the lights — are no longer a primary defense tactic. In the past five years, Ramthun said, focus has shifted toward a U.S. Department of Homeland Security method called "Run. Hide. Fight." that prioritizes fleeing the scene whenever possible.

"We want a victimless environment," Ramthun said.

Not every school district participates in a Teachers Academy-style program, but collaboration between law enforcement agencies and schools is routine. The Shakopee Police Department recently welcomed officials from Homeland Security for an all-day training session with school administrators.

"An emergency is a bad time to hand out business cards," Shakopee police Sgt. Jason Arras said.

The Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan district was attracted to the academy idea because it offered teachers a chance to learn more about police operations, said Mark Parr, the district's secondary education director.

The district does annual active-shooter drills at its 36 buildings, but it could add simulated scenarios like an angry parent in the building, he said.

"You can't depend on someone telling you what to do," Parr said. "You have to have some strategies and learn how to use them quickly."

Kathleen Cates, an Apple Valley third-grade teacher, acknowledged that it's no longer realistic to think a school shooting couldn't happen close to home. Cates said the training also has heightened her senses while out in public.

"It's not just school safety," Cates said. "It's everywhere. Churches, restaurants, everywhere."

Stephen Montemayor • 952-746-3282