ELKINS — The Randolph County Sheriff’s Office has begun active shooter training for school staff and personnel that will run through mid-November and will take place at every school in the county.

The first training day was at Elkins High School Thursday, as students were dismissed from classes for the day so that members of the Sheriff’s Office could work with the school’s staff.

The training session ran from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m., with the first half of the day focusing on classroom work. After lunch in the afternoon, the session took on a more hands-on approach with the teachers and administrators at the school.

“Everything went very well and we picked the biggest school right off the bat so we could have that biggest challenge first,” Randolph County Sheriff Rob Elbon told The Inter-Mountain. “The teachers were fantastic. They paid a lot of attention and asked a lot of questions.

“Later in the day we fired simulation rounds in the school’s hallways and made (the teachers) go through a systematic way of identifying where the shooter was. It was a great day.”

Randolph County Assistant Superintendent Joseph Arbogast was on hand for the training and said the experience was invaluable to everyone involved.

“The morning part was a lot of lecture and statistical data,” he said. “Sgt. (Daniel) Pennington and Deputy (Rocky) Hebb did a lot of talking and explanation, and they answered a lot of questions from staff and faculty regarding what to do and what the plans were if something happened.

“In the afternoon session, we concentrated on a more hands-on approach to handling active shooter situations.”

Pennington and Hebb are the PRO (Prevention Resource Officer) officers in Randolph County. Pennington is stationed at Elkins Middle School, while Hebb is at Tygarts Valley High School. They were joined on Thursday by PRO officers from Upshur, Barbour and Tucker counties.

“We are going to prepare the best that we can and have our teachers and staff at the schools on board as much as possible,” Elbon said. “Sgt. Pennington and

Deputy Hebb are doing a great job leading this training, and we had some PRO officers from some other counties, along with some more of our deputies, jump in and help out.”

Arbogast said the staff at Elkins High School did a great job during the training. He said they eagerly participated, asked many questions, and provided a great deal of feedback to the officers.

“A lot of our staff feel that this training has been needed in the county for some time,” Arbogast told The Inter-Mountain. “We’ve been working on getting this training together since back in July, and there’s been a lot of work put into it. Now it has paid off because we are getting together and working on ways to keep our kids safe.”

The next training session will be Tuesday, when officers go to work with the faculty and staff at Tygarts Valley High School. The rest of the training schedule includes: Sept. 15, Coalton Elementary School; Sept. 20, Elkins Middle School; Sept. 22, Pickens School; Oct. 4, Harman School; Oct. 18, Beverly Elementary School; Oct. 20, Jennings Randolph Elementary School; Oct. 25, Third Ward Elementary; Oct. 27, Midland Elementary; Nov. 1, North Elementary School; Nov. 3, Randolph Technical Center; and Nov. 15, George Ward Elementary.

“Every county in the school will receive its own individualized training that is suited and fits specifically for their school,” Arbogast said.

The idea for the training came after the tragic Uvalde, Texas shooting in May, he noted.

“After Uvalde and seeing some of the breakdowns that happened there, we didn’t want to happen in Randolph County if something were to occur,” Arbogast said. “So Superintendent (Debbie) Schmidlen brought all of us together and we came up with a plan to do this training along with the Sheriff’s Office, who you can really tell supports our schools. They are a tremendous group of people to work with.”

Arbogast added that the feedback about the training from parents and the community as a whole has been very positive.

“I have received zero negative comments and the parents understand the importance of this training,” he added. “They realize that the school system is trying to be proactive and not reactive. They like that we are preparing our staff to keep our schools and their children safe, which is the most important thing we can do.”