BATON ROUGE — As summer ends and Louisiana schools prepare to return to campus, LSU’s National Center for Biomedical Research and Training/Academy of Counter-Terrorist Education (NCBRT/ACE) has been lending its expertise in campus safety preparedness and response to primary, secondary, and higher education institutions.
During the last week of July, LSU NCBRT/ACE conducted four deliveries of its one-day, eight-hour course, Surviving an Active Threat: Run. Hide. Fight., for local schools and the East Baton Rouge Parish School System. More than 140 teachers, principals, staff and school board representatives attended these courses in total.
Because active threat incidents can occur anywhere, this course addresses the Run. Hide. Fight. (RHF) response paradigm and guides participants the various ways to respond to an active threat.
“The entire course was meaningful and provided a beneficial use-case,” said one participant. “I feel that I have an increase of situational awareness as it relates to active shooter preparedness.”
On August 2-3, LSU NCBRT/ACE – in collaboration with LSU, the LSU Police Department and the Board of Regents – hosted the 2022 Louisiana Higher Education Public Safety Summit. Campus safety staff and higher education representatives from around the state gathered in Baton Rouge to discuss ways to keep campuses safe from a variety of threats.
Experts from the Department of Homeland Security, FBI, National Counterterrorism Center, and Louisiana State Police discussed threats facing higher education at the national level, and LSU NCBRT/ACE experts also facilitated scenario-based discussions on topics like active shooter threats, bomb threats, and severe weather. These discussions helped address potential gaps in campus safety plans and created connections among regional higher education systems.
Watch our video on the 2022 Louisiana Higher Education Public Safety Summit here.
That same week, LSU NCBRT/ACE’s Grants to States for School Emergency Management (GSEM) program also participated in the 2022 Louisiana School Safety Summit, which was hosted by the Louisiana Department of Education. This summit focused on safety pertaining to K-12 school systems and brought school system leaders, local and state law enforcement, governmental agencies, and mental health providers together for an opportunity to share and learn best practices around school safety and emergency preparedness.
The GSEM program is a grant funded by the US Department of Education to LSU NCBRT/ACE and the Louisiana Department of Education to provide training and technical assistance to schools and education systems for the development and implementation of high-quality school Emergency Operations Plans.
During the summit, LSU NCBRT/ACE subject matter experts facilitated several break-out sessions focusing on the GSEM program, resources available to local education authorities, and the importance of developing Emergency Operations Plans for K-12 campuses.
Additionally, LSU NCBRT/ACE hosted two Run. Hide. Fight. courses at LSU for faculty and staff also in the first week of August. More than 40 employees from various departments and offices learned the skills necessary to protect themselves, their students and their coworkers. The course encouraged participants to take the lessons learned in the class and think about how they can be applied to their own offices and workspaces.
Watch our video describing the Surviving an Active Threat: Run. Hide. Fight. course here.
About LSU NCBRT/ACE:
LSU NCBRT/ACE is a nationally recognized center for emergency preparedness and response training located at Louisiana State University’s flagship campus in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We provide mobile training to both the national and international emergency response community. LSU NCBRT/ACE has expertise in research, development and delivery of training in the areas of specialized law enforcement operations; biological incident response; food and agriculture safety and security; school safety; and instructional design and technique. For more information on LSU NCBRT/ACE’s courses and resources, please visit ncbrt.lsu.edu.
