CMS gives teachers a somber school supply: trauma kits for potential school shootings
Bandages. Medical shears. Trauma treatment packs for chest wounds. A wedge to block doors.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools teachers last week received a distinct collection of supplies when school opened — trauma kits to help educators treat students if they’re stuck in a classroom during an active shooter or other violent incident.
The district handed out Go Bags to educators in every full-time classroom. The 11,000 bags contain bandages, gauze, a tourniquet, glass breaking tool, rope and other items to use during active survival emergencies.
“In the past, we’ve had to teach staff how they can use a tampon to treat a gunshot wound,” Detective Wes Eubank of the CMS Police Department told The Charlotte Observer. “Or how to use an extension cord as a rope.”
Eubank, who is the district’s active survival instructor, calls the bags “miracles” for educators.
“It’s unprecedented and to say it’s huge is an understatement,” said Eubank, a retired detective from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.
Keeping students safe
Brian Schultz, CMS chief operations officer, says the Go Bags were purchased using a $2.9 million grant from the North Carolina Center for Safer Schools. Grant money was included in last year’s state budget, Schultz said. The district used the money to purchase the bags, medical device equipment and additional camera systems for elementary schools.
Teachers were told to keep the bags where they want, but in a place they can reach quickly. And while there are no bags in areas like gyms and cafeterias, the district will seek grants when the state legislature approves a budget to purchase more.
“It is important that staff members play a role and have ownership of keeping students and each other safe,” Schultz said. “It’s important to not only provide the training but also the tools that go along with it. The tools and resources are only as good as the person who can effectively use them.”
Addressing medical trauma
Eubank and CMSPD provide threat response training to all CMS employees — including custodians, bus drivers, accounting and human resources departments and cafeteria workers — prior to the start of the school and throughout the year. The training teaches to avoid, barricade, counter and survive.
“It teaches what to do in an active shooting environment,” said Eubank, who’s taught the two-hour class in CMS for the last five years. “We teach what to look for as far as characters and traits of an active shooter, and we go through how to address medical trauma.”
Todd Silberman, a spokesman with the state’s Department of Public Instruction, says CMS isn’t the first to incorporate the training and bags, but among a few N.C. districts to do so. Quintin Trent, director of training for the Samarcand Training Academy in Moore County, started a program many years ago in Guilford County Schools, where he was formerly employed, Silberman says.
Knowing what to do
Eubank referenced last month’s fatal shooting at UNC-Chapel Hill when talking about CMS’ safety tactics. A professor was fatally shot, a graduate student charged with murder and the campus locked down for three hours.
Students’ texts, many of which were included on the front page of UNC’s student newspaper The Daily Tar Heel, told of fear and, in some cases, the belief professors didn’t know what to do in an active shooter situation. One student texted: “It’s also scary how unprepared our teachers and staff were for that,” according to a News & Observer report.
“Teachers need to know what to do in an active shooting environment,” Eubank said. “I heard reports that students were told to hide under desks and tables. That’s the absolute wrong thing to tell them. That’s the first place a shooter will look.”
