VWCS conducts massive evacuation drill

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent writer

By all accounts, Tuesday morning’s state mandated safety drill involving Van Wert City Schools and local emergency responders was a big success.

The scenario for the massive evacuation drill was a chemical spill at Ohio 118 and Cooper Road, with the fire department telling district personnel that Van Wert Elementary, Van Wert Middle School, and Van Wert High School on Ohio 118 had to be evacuated as a precaution.

“What we were able to practice today was transferring a large population of students safely from point A to point B,” Assistant Superintendent Bill Clifton said. “We transferred 1,700 first graders through seniors down the state highway over to LifeHouse Church, a facility that housed all of our students and staff.”

During the drill, a portion of State Route 118 was closed off to traffic, and Van Wert police and firefighters were present, along with personnel from the Van Wert Post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, Van Wert County Sheriff’s Office, and Van Wert County Emergency Management Agency (EMA) and Community Emergency Response Team (CERT).

The full-scale exercise, which must be done once every three years, had been in the works for many months, the assistant superintendent said.

“We’ve been drilling our staff and our students on preparing for a crisis in our schools,” Clifton said. “We’re pretty good at locking down our classrooms — I feel as though we’ve done a very good job of preparing our staff and students for lockdowns, for active shooters.”

“What we’ve not practiced is the most complex part of the safety drill process, and that is transferring large populations of students and staff, and today we were able to do that very successfully,” he added.

Superintendent Vicki Brunn said Tuesday’s drill was the only one of its kind in the state.

“What most districts do is just take the kids out to the baseball field and stay on their property, they don’t shut down a highway to move students to safety where they should be if this really happened,” Brunn said.

Brunn and Clifton thanked all of the agencies involved in the drill, along with the district safety team, building administrators, certified and classified staff members, students, bus drivers, custodians, and LifeHouse Church.

A similar drill involving the Early Childhood Center took place during the afternoon hours.