BELLEVILLE, Ill. – Wendy Gallaher has been teaching for 35 years.
“When I was first teaching, we never had intruder drills,” Gallaher said. “We had fire drills, tornado drills.”
On the same day as the mass shooting in Florida, Gallaher and her colleagues went through intruder training at Central Junior High School.
“How can this be happening again? The second thought for me was, thank goodness I'm having this training now,” Gallaher said.
Gallaher said she learned to use a chair to make a door more secure and how to look for classroom objects to fight back, if necessary.
“They taught us to have the kids throw things, literally anything you can pick up and throw things at them,” she said.
More than 100 staff members in the Belleville 118 School District went through the training. It was led by local police.
“This gave them the experience and the knowledge that they would gain that confidence that they could handle the situation,” said Ryan Boike, assistant superintendent.
It is training teachers and staff hope to never use. Gallaher said she wants parents to know if something happens, the teachers and staff are more prepared than ever before.
“They give us their kids every day for 180 days a year. Parents need to know that when they're here, they're our children. And we will do everything and anything to protect their children – as if they were our own,” Gallaher said.
The junior high staff completed training on Wednesday. The elementary school staff will do training soon.
