One place trains Texas teachers in school shootings

SAN MARCOS, Texas (KTRK) -- With the line between educator and protector a little blurred, there's an agency that specializes in safety training for school employees, and it's located in San Marcos.

The Texas School Safety Center on the campus of Texas State University exposes students and faculty to emergency situations and trains them to better handle the danger.

Trainers work with school districts across the state and in the Houston area to prepare them for things like school shootings.

It is many times teachers who are the first layer of defense for their students during shootings, as seen in Florida when Stoneman Douglass High School coach Aaron Feis shielded students during this week's mass shooting.

"It's lock the door. Lights out. Get out of sight. Those are the first options we have," the center's director Kathy Martinez explains in the first acts during an active shooter situation. "If that doors breached, what are you prepared? What are your trained to do?"

The Safety Center began training after the Columbine High School shooting in 1999. Since then, the center has branched out to other states, running lockdown drills and guiding teachers into what they should do inside their classrooms in an emergency, from locking down the buildings to taking shelter and evacuating.

"It's a matter of life and death in many cases. This is an opportunity, the crisis response. It's opportunity right now to talk with our students. Talk with parents," said Martinez.

The training is all free for school districts and teachers. If smaller school districts are unable to come to the center, training is offered to district representatives to bring back to their towns.

For more information on the center, you can visit its website here.