Monday morning a Southern California man went into his estranged wife’s elementary classroom and shot and killed her, an 8-year-old boy and injured another, before taking his own life. School shootings are becoming evermore common throughout the country as there have been more than 270 shootings of any kind at a school since Columbine, according to ABC News. With that in mind, many might wander what Mississippi schools are doing to make sure they can be as best prepared should such an event happen.
School districts around the state have Emergency Management Plans should anything from an animal disturbance to the releasing of a biological agent arise.
Sandi Beason is the public information officer for the Clinton Public School District and told News Mississippi, “We have a comprehensive crises plan that is aligned with state and federal standards for a lot of different types of crisis, and one of those, of course, is an active shooter scenario.”
She said that because a situation like what happened in California is so rare, it’s only practiced so often.
“As far as an active shooter scenario, that’s a little less common and we don’t do drills for that every year,” said Beason.
In the California shooting, police do not believe that the 8-year-old killed along with another student who was injured were targeted. Police believe that the two just happened to be in the vicinity of special education teacher Karen Smith, when Cedric Anderson began firing.
