House Republicans refuse to consider Pfaff plan to protect teachers in active shooter drills at schools

A proposal from State Rep. Tonya Pfaff (D-Terre Haute) to make sure that all participants in active shooter training programs at schools are fully protected was rejected today by House Republicans.

The House GOP refused to vote on an amendment authored by Pfaff that would have prohibited Indiana schools from conducting any kind of safety training that would include shooting at participants in the training. The language would have covered students, teachers, administrators, and other staff at public, charter, and choice scholarship schools.

“In January, teachers at Meadowlawn Elementary School in Monticello, Indiana, were injured while participating in ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate) training,” Pfaff said. “Ironically, this training was designed to teach students and school employees what to do in an active shooter situation at a school.”

During the training, which was conducted by the White County Sheriff’s Department, teachers were lined up against a wall, ordered to get on their knees, and shot with plastic pellets fired from an air-powered gun. One teacher was shot in the back four times, and several others were left with welts, bruises, and abrasions. In at least one case, the pellets drew blood.

“Preparing for an active shooter situation is a sad reality of the time in which we live,” Pfaff said. “This kind of training saves lives, but there is no need for people to actually get shot during training. We want to encourage students and staff to prepare for these situations, but not when there’s a risk of personal injury during the training.

“If we force people into a situation where they want to avoid ALICE training because they might get injured, we are creating situations where more people would be unprepared for active shooter situations, and that means a greater risk of more people being hurt. This amendment simply would have encouraged people to be prepared, and I am disturbed to see that it has not received the support it needed from the House Republicans.”