In light of recent events, such as the Las Vegas Massacre, the Marysville Pilchuck High School shooting and Marjory Douglas Stoneman High School shooting, Bishop Blanchet has decided to assess and update current lockdown procedures.

Bishop Blanchet has begun putting more of an emphasis on lockdown drills and will begin implementing new tactics in the upcoming school year with the help of a new company, Crisis Reality.

Crisis Reality focuses on lockdown training and surviving a shooting for students, teachers, faculty, and more and is owned and ran by a retired Pierce County sheriff Jesus Villahermosa.

Recently Jesus Villahermosa visited Bishop Blanchet and assessed Blanchet’s current lockdown procedures.

Dean of Students Lynn Augustavo is very happy to be updating the lockdown procedure.

“We are looking to implement a single point of entry versus the various points of entry we have currently and different locations of where to go to in the case of an active shooter,” said Augustavo. “The old drill [that we currently use] is just archaic.”

Head security officer Marilu Byrne is looking forward to getting new recommendations from Crisis Reality.

“Crisis Reality is going to evaluate what we do right now,” said Byrne. “We have already implemented some new things like new door covers and we will get some more recommendations in the upcoming weeks.”

Social Studies teacher Katie Newman, was working at Arlington High School just seven miles away from Marysville Pilchuck when the Marysville Pilchuck High School shooting happened.

Newman is very happy we are taking further steps to keep our school safe and protect ourselves, especially in non-conventional ways.

“The incident [the Marysville Pilchuck shooting] happened at lunch,” said Newman. “Most of the time, we always prepare for lockdown drills in the easiest setting. [With a lockdown drill] we know it’s coming and we are in our classrooms. When in reality, in a lot of the instances, when they actually happen, someone has pulled a fire alarm or it’s at lunch, so I think to be really prepared we need to practice these drills in sort of non-conventional ways.”