First responders from Phoenix, Talent, Ashland participate in training for reuniting students with their families 

By Holly Dillemuth, Ashland.news

TALENT –  Classes aren’t back in session just yet, but there were lessons learned this week at Talent Middle School and Phoenix High School.

A shrill tone sounded throughout the halls of Talent Middle School Monday morning.

Talent Police Patrol Officer Dyvia Amesur went from door-to-door unlocking Talent Middle School (TMS) classrooms, alerting students and staff inside, all volunteer participants, about an active shooter threat to the campus, according to organizers — though on Monday, all involved knew it was just a drill, the first reunification drill organized at Phoenix-Talent School District. 

The training exercise was months in the making, involving Phoenix, Talent and Ashland police departments and upwards of 100 volunteers, including Phoenix High School football players from coach Charlie Hall’s Pirate squad, as well as students from TMS and staff and parent volunteers.

Brent Barry, superintendent of Phoenix-Talent School District, walked the halls Monday, talking to staff prior to the start of the drill. He also debriefed with students and staff at the end of the drill.

“We went through the 2020 fires and we went through a fire that almost disrupted graduation; we (went) through a reunification that wasn’t perfect by any means,” Barry said, “and we’ll learn from it, but it just creates some confidence in our staff and our community.”

Aaron Santi, district office administrator, helped parents and staff navigate the reunification process with parents and their students inside the auditorium.

“This room, it’s kind of the parents holding area … we get them checked in, we check their IDs,” Santi said.

Once the information was verified for themselves and their child, parents were given a wristband and waited to reunite with them in the next staging area.  

“The idea is, when that emergency text goes out, parents are going to get here before the kids, probably,” Santi said. “So we’re going to get them checked in … and then wait for their kid to show up.

Heather Knapp was among the parent volunteers waiting for her children, one going into ninth grade and one a senior this fall at Phoenix High. She waited at home until she got a text message about the emergency and was alerted to meet up at Phoenix High to reunite with her children.

“I’m trying to keep it (together),” Knapp said, noting emotions surrounding the simulation were high. “I’m hoping that we don’t ever have to deal with this, but it is crucial for the community, for teachers, for fire, for police, just for everybody to have some kind of a foundation underneath them.”

Knapp noted that while waiting for her children, thoughts of previous shootings in her memory were at top of mind.

“I was thinking about Columbine honestly,” Knapp said. “I went to this school and I was in this school when that happened and so it kind of brought me back a bit.

“To all the kids that have lost their lives,” she noted, through tears, “and to all those families, we owe that at least this much to take out a little bit of our time to try and prevent more deaths.”

Santi echoed Knapp’s sentiment. 

“You’ve seen nationwide, statewide that there’s been different emergency situations that have come up and so, as part of our preparation, we do regular lockdown and lockout drills, fire drills, earthquake drills, we do all these emergency drills, but we’ve never actually simulated the process of reunification — How do you get kids and parents back together?” Santi said.

“The point of this is to try to practice that process, which we’ve never done before,” he added.

Santi noted that the auditorium would look much different in a real scenario.

“It would be extremely tense, there’d be people very anxious and worried,” Santi said.

“We talked about, how do we keep those folks calm and what do we do if someone’s really insistent on not waiting?”

“We’re going to really try to keep people calm,” he added. “We hope we never have to do it for real.”

Talent Police Sgt. Ken Lehman, who has served as a school resource officer (SRO) for Talent Middle School for the past four years, referenced a reunification drill conducted by Medford School District that has served in part as a learning model for other schools.

“No matter how much we talk about it and plan, until you actually do it, you don’t learn,” Lehman said.

With about 60 students participating in the drill, Lehman said on a regular day at Talent Middle School, there would be 400 to 450 students in addition to staff.

“Real world, it’s going to be chaos,” Lehman said.

He estimates it could take 15 to 30 minutes to set up an actual reunification in the event of an emergency.  

“Real world, students are going to be confused, injured and that’s something we need to deal with to keep them calm and focused on getting them back with their parents and, obviously, the parents coming here not knowing anything other than there’s been an incident, and they want to see their kid, so the sooner we can reunify, the better for everybody,” Lehman said.

“The reunification process, it’s really the first step of the healing process,” Lehman added, “because we’re going to deal with everything that happened before that, but for the families to reunite, and to figure out everything that happened … that’s going to cause some trauma.

“It’s extremely important that we can start that healing.”

“We had counselors here today and in a real world situation, we will have mental health and chaplains here to help deal with those situations,” Lehman added.

Ernie Whiteman, a security consultant contracted by the Phoenix-Talent School District to help lead the drill in coordination with the district, stood nearby as students were reunited with parents and volunteer parents. Whiteman retired from Medford Police as a school resource officer of more than 17 years, with more than 26 years on the local force. He also served two years as Talent Middle School’s SRO.

Whiteman said the training is created to protect the students until they can be reunited with loved ones.

“The worst thing we can do is the parents show up to get their kid and we don’t know where they’re at,” Whiteman said. 

Whiteman said communication could be improved next time, but overall, he believes the exercise was a success.

“The process itself is working pretty good,” he said. 

Whiteman started as an SRO not long before a shooting at Thurston High School in 1998, when a student murdered his parents and then murdered two students, Ben Walker and Mikael Nickolauson the next day.

“When I first got into the role of school resource officer, it was about three months before Thurston happened,” he said, noting SROs have learned a lot since.

“It’s unfortunate we have to go through this, but that’s the real world we live in now.

“We want to do another one, take what we’ve learned and do a little more detail,” he added.

Coincidentally, Ashland School District’s SRO Mike Bates was among Whiteman’s students in a 40-hour “SRO school” just outside of Portland. Bates was also among participants of the drill, and also observed it as a way to prepare for when Ashland will hold a reunification drill. Ashland district officials attended a Medford School District reunification drill last year to learn proper procedures.

“Having him locally is just a wealth of information,” Bates said of Whiteman. “He’s a phone call away and you can bug him anytime.

Bates hinted that Ashland School District is looking into holding its own reunification drill at some point in the future.

“Hopefully we can just learn bits and pieces here and take some back to our district and be able to put something together,” Bates said.

Bates emphasized that having a plan for all emergencies, not just active shooter threats, is important. 

“If we need to evacuate a school for any reason, we need to have a plan to reunify it,” Bates said.

Ashland School District goes back to school on Monday, Aug. 25.

Phoenix-Talent School District, which includes Talent Middle School, starts classes on Tuesday, Sept. 2.

Email Ashland.news reporter Holly Dillemuth at [email protected].