Teachers at an Indiana elementary school were left bruised, bleeding and frightened after being shot "execution style" with plastic pellets during an active-shooter training exercise in January, according to the Indiana State Teachers Association. It's shocked teachers, parents and psychologists alike, renewing the debate around active shooter and lockdown drills: Where is the line between preparing teachers and students and traumatizing them? Are drills effective in preventing school shooting deaths? Or harmful to all involved who, despite the seeming ubiquity of school shootings, are unlikely to endure one? "The teachers were terrified, but were told not to tell anyone what happened," the Indiana State Teachers Association said on Twitter. "Teachers waiting outside that heard the screaming were brought into the room four at a time and the shooting process was repeated." The drill in Monticello was conducted by the White County Sheriff's Department. Teachers were supposed to be receiving what is called ALICE training, which is used in thousands of schools around the country. "In that situation you are helpless, in that situation you are in pain, in that situation you feel danger. And those are the markers that define trauma," said clinical psychologist Azmaira Maker. Lockdown drills have been around for decades, but as fear of school shootings has intensified, they have become more widespread and elaborate. According to a 2016 Government Accountability Office survey, almost all of the nation’s public schools participated in lockdown drills the previous year, and 67 percent held active shooter drills. Those that did not said they were concerned the exercise, which often involves a live simulation of an armed assailant, would create too much fear. It's already known that lockdown and active shooter drills can "produce anxiety, stress, and traumatic symptoms in some students or staff," according to the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP). Yet nearly all schools conduct one or the other, some multiple times per year, though some psychologists say there is scant evidence some of these approaches are effective. "We are living in a reactive time where schools are adopting policies which have no evidence of protecting schools and can actually create more anxiety for staff and kids — hiding under desks, arming kindergartners with cans of food is the wrong direction," said Nancy Rappaport, a part time associate professor in psychiatry at Harvard medical school. "Building safe communities is about creating caring relationships, anonymous tip lines and a culture where kids share their concerns." NASP said research supports the effectiveness of lockdown drills when best practices are used, but more data is needed to determine the effectiveness of armed assailant drills. The dangerous element of surprise NASP says one of the most important things schools can do when conducting an active shooter lockdown drill is to prepare people for what's going to happen. "Those teachers from Monticello did not expect what they were put through," said AFT Indiana President GlenEva Dunham, who said drills for her teachers have not been nearly as intense. "We all go in open-minded ... but what they did to those teachers, not to give them warning of what they were up against — they were welted up and bleeding. You don't do people like that." Sara Zaske has two children, a 9-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter. She said both have had lockdown drills at their schools without warning. Her son was so upset that she wrote a letter to her school district last year expressing concern about the "surprise" lockdowns. She says she never received a response. "[My son] finds it very frightening," Zaske said. "I tell him to be calm. I also tell him despite the rise in active shooters, and you hear these horrible stories, it's still incredibly rare. It's really unlikely there's a shooter in his school." A January report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found school-associated homicides represent less than 2% of all youth homicides in the United States. While students had "duck and cover" drills in the 1950s to prepare for nuclear war, students and teachers had never seen nuclear bombs dropped on U.S. soil. Today students and teachers have seen school shootings happen in communities all over the country with TV news and social media broadcasting details of the tragedies on loop. "Some kids could be seeing images on social media of shootings in Parkland and New Zealand — spending a lot of time feeling like the world is an unsafe place," said Katherine Cowan, staff liaison for NASP's school safety and crisis work and co-author of their armed assailant drill guidance document. "And without social support networks to help them move away from that kind of thinking, they could be at risk for having a more significant reaction to these kinds of drills." It's a bigger deal to some teachers and kids Active shooter drills can be frightening for anyone. The threat of danger, even when simulated, can feel very real. But for people who have experienced previous trauma, active shooter lockdown drills can be especially triggering, mental health experts say. "If kids or teachers have had a history of trauma — even if you tell them we're doing a lockdown drill Tuesday and this is what's going to happen — when they're physically in the situation and they're re-experiencing the significant danger, the physical memories in your body and your brain just fire up," Maker said. Maker said that's why it's important for schools to work with psychologists and education specialists in the planning of drills. Schools may even be able to identify ahead of time, through school counselors, kids who should not participate, whether because of trauma or sensorial issues. Some experts question how lifelike these simulations need to be. You don't dive the plane and fill the cabin with smoke to teach people to put their oxygen masks on, Cowan said. "How you react is going to vary — if you're a 65-year-old teacher who has a heart problem, or a 6-year-old child who has high anxiety, or you are a kid whose parents are going through a divorce — you're more vulnerable, and that can lead to a stronger reaction," she said. Active-shooter drills proliferated after the Columbine school shooting in 1999, when law enforcement realized that they needed better understanding of how to stop a shooter in a school setting. "There is value in law enforcement and lead school administrators understanding things like whether communications are working properly or what the layout of the school is," Cowan said. "But when you start to add groups of people into that simulation who are outside of that nexus, that's when you see additional risks." Is there a better way? NASP says there are ways to mitigate the psychological effects of lockdown and active drills, including: Follow best practices: NASP suggests all schools reference the Best Practice Considerations for Schools in Active Shooter and Other Armed Assailant Drills, which it helped develop to provide guidance on factors schools should consider when conducting armed assailant drills, including prior trauma and special needs. NASP suggests all schools reference the Best Practice Considerations for Schools in Active Shooter and Other Armed Assailant Drills, which it helped develop to provide guidance on factors schools should consider when conducting armed assailant drills, including prior trauma and special needs. Plan: Let teachers, children and parents know a drill is going to take place. Do not surprise them. Always announce lockdown drills when they are happening. Let teachers, children and parents know a drill is going to take place. Do not surprise them. Always announce lockdown drills when they are happening. Opt-out: Give people the option not to participate, especially when props, such as airsoft guns, are used. Give people the option not to participate, especially when props, such as airsoft guns, are used. Monitor during the drill: If someone is exhibiting signs of trauma, remove them. If someone is exhibiting signs of trauma, remove them. Feedback: When developing a plan for drills, give people the ability to provide feedback on what worked and what didn't. Feedback is important because the efficacy and impact of these drills is still being determined.<doc-sep>An Indiana teachers union is demanding change to active shooter drill protocols after teachers at an elementary school reported that they had been injured when they were shot by Airsoft guns during a recent exercise. "During active shooter drill, four teachers at a time were taken into a room, told to crouch down and were shot execution style with some sort of projectiles — resulting in injuries to the extent that welts appeared, and blood was drawn," a statement from the Indiana State Teachers Association on Wednesday said. Association members said they were injured during the drill at Monticello’s Meadowlawn Elementary School, according to the statement. The drill was conducted by the White County Sheriff's Department, which defended the methods it used. White County Sheriff Bill Brooks said participation was voluntary, and teachers were shown beforehand what the drill would entail. "The training was meant to be realistic — to show what happens if you don't act," he said. But the Indiana State Teachers Association said while it supports the practices that will keep teachers and students safe, it thinks the drill at Meadowlawn went too far. "No one in education takes these drills lightly. The risk of harming someone far outweighs whatever added realism one is trying to convey here," said the association's statement, calling for an amendment to a school safety bill "so that more reasonable limits are placed on these drills." Meadowlawn Elementary staff receive training from The White County sheriffs department. Meadowlawn Elementary School via Facebook During a hearing regarding that bill Wednesday, Indiana House of Representatives Rep. Wendy McNamara acknowledged that using Airsoft guns wasn't appropriate during a school shooter drill. "I don't believe that something like that should take place in an active shooter drill," she said. "I think we have teachers under enough stress that if we're going to be doing an active shooter drill, it should not be one in which the teachers become unwilling participants or targets." Michael Galvin, the superintendent of the Twin Lakes School Corporation, to which Meadowlawn belongs, said in a statement that the district had coordinated a meeting between the local teachers union, Twin Lakes Classroom Teachers Organization, and the White County Sheriff's Office to further discuss the best way to hold active shooter drills.<doc-sep>The teachers have not been publicly identified, and none have spoken on the record about their experience. One teacher, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, said trainers fired pellet guns at the teachers during several training exercises, not just the execution-style shooting. But in other exercises “you were allowed to try to not get hit,” she said in a phone interview on Friday. She said the teachers were not told they were going to be shot before the execution-style shooting exercise began, and the trainers did not ask the teachers about their medical histories before subjecting them to physical force. “It hurt really bad,” said the woman, who said she was left with bruises, welts and bleeding cuts that took almost two weeks to heal. “You don’t know who you are shooting and what types of experience those individuals had in the past, whether they had PTSD or anything else. And we didn’t know what we were going into.” She described the training as frightening, painful and insulting. “What makes it more outrageous is they thought we would need to have that experience of being shot to take this seriously,” she said. “When I thought about it that way, I really started to get angry. Like we are not professionals. It felt belittling.”<doc-sep>
Indiana elementary school teachers participating in an active shooter training drill said they were shot with plastic pellets which left them with bruises and welts. The White County Sheriff office conducted the training exercise at Meadowlawn Elementary in Monticello, Ind. in January. IndyStar reported two elementary school teachers testified before state lawmakers this week that they participated in a drill where teachers were asked by local law enforcement to kneel down against a classroom wall before being hit with plastic pellets without warning. “They told us, ‘This is what happens if you just cower and do nothing,’” one of the two teachers who did not want to be identified told IndyStar. “They shot all of us across our backs. I was hit four times. It hurt so bad.” The Indiana State Teachers Association tweeted: "During active shooter drill, four teachers at a time were taken into a room, told to crouch down and were shot execution style with some sort of projectiles - resulting in injuries to the extent that welts appeared, and blood was drawn." The ISTA is now lobbying lawmakers to add language prohibiting teachers from being shot with any kind of ammunition to a school safety bill, House Bill 1004, which is working its way through the Statehouse. HORRIFYING DETAILS RELEASED IN INVESTIGATION OF 'EXTREMIST MUSLIM' COMPOUND THAT ALLEGEDLY CONDUCTED SCHOOL-SHOOTING TRAINING According to House Bill 1004, all schools must conduct an active-shooter drill at least once a year but, it does not mandate any specific type of training program. The White County Sheriff, Bill Brooks, told Fox News, about four officers went to Meadowlawn Elementary School in January to conduct an active shooter training exercise called ALICE, which he said typically involves the use of an air-powered device called airsoft guns. Thousands of schools across the country, including many in Indiana, are using ALICE for training exercises, according to IndyStar. TEEN SUSPECT KILLED HIMSELF INSIDE INDIANA MIDDLE SCHOOL AFTER FIRING AT OFFICERS, POLICE SAY Brooks said the plastic pellets are more than 6 mm in diameter compared to a BB, which is metal and is about 4 mm in diameter. “It’s a larger plastic projectile compared to a metal, much smaller projectile,” Sheriff Brooks told Fox News. He said the plastic projectile is much softer. “It was 100% voluntary,” Brooks told Fox News “Most teachers volunteered, a few did not and were allowed to observe.” He said the teachers were told they would be shot with the airsoft guns as part of the training and still volunteered. Brooks said he was at the elementary school for part of the January training, but was not present when the airsoft gun was used. Both Meadowlawn teachers who spoke to IndyStar said they were not warned by the officers before the drill that anyone would be shot. One of the teachers said she was waiting in the library with other teachers as the first small group went into a classroom for the January training session. “The firsts group went in and we heard them scream and yell,” she said. “We thought, ‘What is going on?’” The teacher described what happened when it was her turn to participate, “it was like a quick spew of those pellets.” “Most of us got hit several times in our backs,” said the teacher. She said the pellets left welts and a spot where it broke her skin. “Our children’s safety is still our highest priority and we will continue active shooter training exercises however teachers will no longer be involved.” — Bill Brooks, White County Sheriff Juli Topp, vice president of member representation for Twin Lakes Classroom Teachers Organization, told IndyStar she met with the Meadowlawn teachers last week and heard similar stories from more than a dozen different teachers. “They voluntarily signed up for this training, however, they had no idea they were going to be shot,” Topp said. In a statement released Thursday, Michael Galvin, Superintendent for Twin Lakes Schools said the school district is committed to providing a safe environment for its students and employees. "...Twin Lakes partners with the White County Sheriff’s Department for public safety guidance and to train Twin Lakes staff, which includes ALICE training," said Galvin. "Recently the Twin Lakes Classroom Teachers Organization voiced questions regarding how the Sheriff’s Department conducted ALICE training, and Twin Lakes facilitated a meeting with the Association and the Sheriff’s Department to collaboratively discuss these matters."