The drill will test local police, fire and medical response to scenarios including an active shooter, mass evacuations and reuniting students with their families. It’ll take place at Oakdale Middle School, which will be the third middle school in the district when it opens later this year.
Executive Director of Security Ron Havniear at the Medford School District said they’ve been planning this event since January, involving over 30 groups that each bring their own training needs.
“One of the first things we did is we laid out all of those training objectives," Havniear said. "These were developed by each of the different entities, so for fire and medical, we want to hit these types of objectives. For active shooters and law enforcement we want to hit these objectives."
Havniear said around 270 volunteers will be part of the drill, acting as students, teachers and parents. They’ll be acting out a number of different scenes at Oakdale Middle School involving those on-the-ground as well as high level command operations.
Medford School District Superintendent Bret Champion says this exercise will help everyone practice skills they don’t often get to use.
"Every one of our principals and assistant principals is participating in this event, not just to mechanics of it, but honestly to feel it," he said.
The district said the roads around Oakdale Middle School may be blocked off or restricted on Thursday, and expect lots of emergency services in the area.
Once the exercise is over, Havniear said the district will be able to create videos and training documents to share with other school districts and families.
