It has long been recognized that collaborative efforts for fire and hazardous materials response benefits both industry and the community. However, other potentially fruitful areas of cooperation have not been generally recognized or exploited. This paper describes an effort to use a common industry practice, the table top exercise, as a means for improving security procedures in public and private schools. The process described here was developed to address a need to minimize the potential adverse consequences of violence and terrorism in schools as was experienced at Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colorado. A team comprised of local school representatives, police, fire, EMS and industry were assembled to create and implement "Active Shooter" Table Top Exercises for all City schools in Kingsport, Tennessee. The primary customer for these exercises was the school system but a synergy developed early into the process for these groups to become an interactive team. This presentation will describe a "How To " approach which includes the selection of the team, creation of a master scenario, conducting an Orientation Seminar, adaptation of scenario to each school (elementary, middle, and high), conducting the Table Top Exercise, critique, summary of lessons learned, procedure/policy/practices updates, follow-up training for remaining staff, and auditing protocol. The three major learnings from this process were the identification of areas and operations where minor and in most cases inexpensive changes would have a significant positive effect on the security of the facility, the significantly improved lines of communication between the participating organizations and the expectations they have of each other, and the experience of how to modify a basic industrial technique to develop a security/vulnerability assessment methodology for the community.
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