GREENSBURG – Decatur County Schools are hosting a disaster exercise Friday afternoon to complete the training of the first “Student CERT Team” for the school corporation.
After the training is complete twenty-four students will be recognized as “Community Emergency Response Team” members. It will allow the school corporation to place a rapid student response team in each of the county high schools. Students receive disaster medical training, triage training, fire suppression, and incident command training before course graduation.
“Friday’s exercise will put the students through their paces in all the areas they trained in over the last three days,” said Johnny Budd, superintendent of Decatur County Community Schools.
“In a rural community with only two on-duty ambulances a group of trained in-house responders is vital to our ability to provide necessary self-help until additional emergency services can arrive.”
The school corporation received a grant from the Indiana Department of Homeland Security earlier this year. As a result, the school hired the first ever School Resource Officer and have taken other safety measures.
The safety grants were intended to take an all hazard approach and not specifically focused on school violence.
Friday’s training takes place at the Decatur County Sheriff’s Department.
