Area Safety Personnel Attend Crisis Management Class at Carnesville Fire Dept

Area law enforcement officers, first responders, and firefighters now have a better understanding of the kinds of situations that could occur at a school and how to respond.

On Tuesday, they attended a special one-day seminar at Carnesville Fire Department called AWR 148: Crisis Management for School-Based Incidents.

In addition to Franklin County, attendees included safety personnel from Habersham, Hart, and Madison counties.

The one-day class taught rural law enforcement, first responders, and local school systems how to partner together to solve a school incident or crisis.

Local coordinator Clayton Bryant with the Carnesville Fire Department says the seminar received good attendance and he said he received good feedback from those who took part.

“I think it went really well. It seemed to be well received by everyone who attended,” he said. “A lot of law enforcement who attended had already had training similar to that. but there were some of us, school staff, fire, and EMS who had really never been exposed to that. So I think it was really good to be in the same room and talking together,” he said.

Bryant said another good thing about the seminar was that it covered a wide variety of topics, not just active shooter incidents.

He said the class brought to light some other areas of concern where student safety could be jeopardized.

“They covered a wide scope of topics. It wasn’t just active shooters or school shooters. It was also weather and fire disasters, things like that,” he explained. “It was just stuff that you really didn’t think of and that we probably need to develop some plans for.”

Bryant pointed out that Carnesville Elementary school is only about a half-mile from the Interstate and things like chemical spills from an overturned truck could happen on 85 which could cause a school evacuation.

“That would actually bring in the elementary school and the middle school. So we need to start developing plans for that,” he said.

Bryant said his goal is for all Franklin County safety personnel and schools to work together and be on the same page when it comes to protecting students in the event of an incident or crisis emergency.

He said another seminar will be scheduled in the future.