Sanders County schools prepare for worst-case scenarios

[This is part one of a series looking at school safety in Sanders County.]

Emergencies in Sanders County schools can take many forms varying in severity and impacting students in different ways – from natural disasters and threats of violence to medical issues. 

School districts across the county are constantly working to increase safety and security.

“It’s my people that I need to keep safe, my school, my staff, my children,” Plains Superintendent Kathleen Walsh said. 

Towns in Sanders County lie along the banks of the Flathead and Clark Fork rivers and are especially susceptible to the threat of flooding with two major dams upstream. 

Another major concern is the potential release of chemical or hazardous material caused by a train derailment. Hazardous materials are being transported daily through Sanders County. Missoula and Mineral counties experienced a major hazardous chlorine tanker spill during a train derailment in April 1997. The resulting spill required the evacuation of the town of Alberton for close to a month.

There is also the possibility of medical emergencies, which require constant training and review for staff. 

During a recent medical emergency event in the Plains School cafeteria, lifesaving training helped save a student when paraprofessional Heather Worrall applied the Heimlich maneuver on a chocking individual. This type of training throughout local school districts has a tremendous impact on the entire school community and is an intricate part of the mandatory state requirements each district trains for.

Districts also must be prepared for bomb and shooting threats, although most school emergencies in Montana are not gun related. The last fatal gun incident at a Montana school occurred 30 years ago in Butte when a 10-year-old student pulled a handgun on another student and fired three shots resulting in the death of Jeremy Bullock.

Last September, a juvenile in Mineral County posted on social media a threat to bring a gun to school. In this case, another student reported the threat to the authorities. The juvenile was arrested and detained at the Missoula County Juvenile Detention Facility on felony charges.

National school shooting incidents started being tracked in 1966. Incident levels stayed relatively low, seeing a spike in 1993 and 2006. After 2015, school shooting incidents jumped dramatically.

According to data, schools nationally faced a wide array of violence that include false reports (29.5% of incidents), outside violence coming into the school (10% of incidents), possible explosive devices and detonations (6.7% of incidents), fights that required law enforcement intervention (6.5% of incidents), intruders in the school (5.6% of incidents) and knives found and/or stabbings (3.9% of incidents).

Sanders County school districts are also taking mental health issues very seriously.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, one in six U.S. youth aged 6-17 experience a mental health disorder each year, and half of all mental health conditions begin by age 14.

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, behavior problems, anxiety, and depression are the most diagnosed mental disorders in children, the alliance states. Yet, about half of youth with mental health conditions received any kind of treatment in the past year.

“Undiagnosed, untreated, or inadequately treated mental illnesses can significantly interfere with a student’s ability to learn, grow, and develop,” the allicance notes. “Since children spend much of their productive time in educational settings, schools offer a unique opportunity for early identification, prevention, and interventions that serve students where they already are. Youth are almost as likely to receive mental health services in an education setting as they are to receive treatment from a specialty mental health provider in 2019, 15% of adolescents aged 12-17 reported receiving mental health services at school, compared to 17% who saw a specialty provider.”

Montana Safe Schools Center provides training and technical assistance, research and resources, and tele-mental health support to schools and communities across Montana. They network through partnerships to improve students physical and emotional safety and school climate.

Safer Montana intends to lower school safety threats by giving families and communities an effective tool to report potential threats. All reported tips are analyzed and answered within minutes.

The center is run by Dr. Emily Sallee a professor at the University of Montana. Her research includes adolescent suicidality, non-suicidal self-injury, school violence and preventions. The call center is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year at 406-206-7431.

A recent study compiled by Tamar D. Nance-Bethea in May 2024 asked students how safe they felt at school. Partial results of the study concluded that students felt safer in a school environment. Participants also felt the need for more security. The study was designed to investigate school safety perceptions of students in rural elementary, middle, and high schools.

A program that the Plains School District has partnered with is called Secure Environment Consultants. A recent threat assessment training session took place in Missoula and involved personnel from the Plains School District including Officer Rob Geenen from the Plains Police Department.

Training, during the program helps participants identify, evaluate and manage potential threats within the school. The training focuses on recognizing warning signs. SEC training includes evaluating risks based on the individual’s behavior and developing an effective intervention for those most at risk, and to prevent and respond to any potential threat with the goal of a safer and secure school environment.

Once the school district partners with SEC the district is required to form an assessment team, composed of key staff that meet monthly for the purpose of addressing behavioral threat assessments of students in need of academic and behavioral support or interventions.