DSISD and first responders conduct active shooter drill at Cypress Springs elementary

Members of local law enforcement and emergency services in North Hays County collaborated with the campus security team of the Dripping Springs Independent School District to conduct an active shooter drill at Cypress Springs Elementary School in Driftwood on Friday, July 26.

The two-part exercise allowed deputies from the Hays County Sheriff ’s Office and Hays County Constable’s Office Pct. 4 to familiarize themselves with the layout of the school campus, which is just three years old. It is the first DSISD school in Driftwood. The key objective of this drill was measuring how the first responders work with the district’s new marshall program, which places armed, plain-clothed security marshalls on campus.

The drill tested how well the marshalls interacted with an emergency threat at one of its schools, in this case Cypress Springs elementary. In these mock scenarios, the on-site marshall calls in a threat and meets the first response officers at a designated entry point before moving in to find and clear the threat, like an active shooter. The marshall serves as a lead to guide the officers though the building. Officers, who were armed, then practiced quickly and systematically clearing each hall and classroom to find and neutralize the threat.

In a second drill, North Hays emergency medical technicians practiced removing injured victims from a mass shooting scenario at the school and extracting them to be transported to emergency trauma units.

Serena Cumberland, Director of Safety for DSISD, a position she assumed in 2022, oversees preparations for scenarios like the one practiced on Friday. She is responsible for maintaining and implementing the safety and security protocols for all DISD campuses. Cumberland retired from the Hays Sheriff ’s Office after 28 years in law enforcement and is a resident of the Dripping Springs community.

Last year, the Texas Legislature directed school districts to improve their safety and security protocols following the school shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on May 24, 2022, which killed 19 children and two teachers, and wounded more than a dozen others.

Per state mandate, the district now has armed marshals at its senior schools and school resource officers (SROs) at its other campuses. Marshals are not uniformed and wear plain street clothes like other staff on campus.

Cumberland said today’s drills were to test the interaction between school marshals and local police and build familiarity between the school and government police force. “That way, when we're ever confronted with a critical incident, the familiarity of knowing each other is not an obstacle and we all know how they respond,” Cumberland said. Since the city of Dripping Springs does not have a local police department the jurisdiction for policing and law enforcement falls on Hays County. Sheriff and Hays County Constable’s office. More than a dozen law enforcement officers from those departments participated in the drills on Friday, along with Fire department personnel and staff from DSISD.

Hays County Pct.4 deputy constable Zachary Miller, who participated in the drill, said the officers learned a lot from this exercise, such as who the marshal is and how the school is laid out, enabling them to quickly clear the halls and classrooms. “It was also important to learn how we each communicate,” he said. One of the failings found in the Uvalde shooting was poor command and communication. Drills like the one Friday aim to prepare multiple agencies to respond to a threat effectively and quickly.

Miller lives in Dripping Springs and has two children who are students in the district. Before joining the Constable’s office he was a deputy for the Hays County Sheriff ’s Office.

The district will continue to cross-train with local law enforcement responders as it works to keep school campuses, students, and staff safe from violent threats.