This is the first installment in a multi-part series about school safety in Iowa.

As Stephen Bayens, commissioner of the Iowa Department of Public Safety, recounted the details of the Perry school shooting in a press conference, law enforcement in Johnson County rehearsed life-saving tactics with replica firearms in the deserted corridors of the former Hills Elementary school — readying themselves for the worst case scenario.

Commissioner Bayens said since the Perry shooting, the department’s Division of Intelligence has tracked 855 school safety threats that were investigated across the state. The Iowa City Community School District has received seven threats of violence so far this year compared to six last year.

With increases in threats, the state, Johnson County law enforcement, and local schools have been actively working through training to be prepared. Access to threat reporting has increased through software such as Safe and Sound, schools have seen increased funding for their buildings, and law enforcement have been creating elaborate drills in preparation for active shooter scenarios.

In August, the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department, along with 50 law enforcement agencies totaling more than 160 emergency responders, acted out one of the largest training exercises they had ever done at Clear Creek Amana High School.

Johnson County Sheriff Brad Kunkel said the exercise took around six months of planning and included the University of Iowa AirCare team, the county medical examiner, media, and other organizations.

During the exercise, they had people simulating the shooter as well as victims at various stages of injury. No students, besides volunteers, were present during the training. Kunkel said the training included a simulated explosive device as well to create as real of a scenario as they could produce.

“We do every piece of it, to getting in the door, [identifying] where’s the shooter, navigating through the building, and bypassing victims to stop the threat,” Kunkel said. “It was start to finish. It was as real as it’s probably going to get.”

He said these types of training have become ingrained in law enforcement. One way they stay prepared is having their deputies walk through schools in their jurisdiction almost daily, which Kunkel said helps several factors, including interacting with students and staff, but also knowing the layout of the building.

“It’s really been worked into law enforcement training, just the same as we do OWI and field sobriety testing,” he said. “We just know that active shooter training is a fundamental part of what we do.”

In recent weeks, the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department has coordinated with the county’s Emergency Management agency to perform training in the former Hills Elementary School building. Hills was closed by the Iowa City Community School District to save $1.6 million in their budget last year. It is slated for demolition.

Dave Wilson, Emergency Management coordinator, helped set up the training at Clear Creek Amana High School and at Hills. He said the Hills training consisted of information sessions along with drills using blue guns, which are fake guns that cannot fire, but they simulate a real weapon.

He said in some training scenarios, they will use paintball guns when it is a force-on-force scenario and no teachers are present. They are planning one more training before the building is demolished.

Wilson said gaps in training come from turnover in public safety professionals as well as the perishable nature of the skillset because police are not constantly handling shootings in schools. He said having this training refreshes law enforcement on the best protocols.

Wilson believes the county is one of the best in Iowa for its law enforcement training.

“I doubt there’s a county in Iowa that trains more than we do. We just don’t go out and advertise it,” Wilson said. “Every law enforcement agency in this county takes that training seriously, and they train on it at every opportunity, whether it’s a large-scale incident or a small one.”

Commissioner Bayens said during the press conference that 1,484 law enforcement officers have gone through active shooter training in the state, with 5,386 teachers and civilians having received civilian response to active shooter training.

The sheriff’s department plays a large role in making sure teachers in the county are prepared. The department has seven staff members who go to schools and do ALICE training for teaching staff in presentations. ALICE is an acronym for alert, lockdown, inform, counter, and evacuate. The training began in 2000, shortly after the 1999 Columbine school shooting.

Jorey Bailey, lieutenant of investigations for the Iowa City Police Department, has worked with the department since the Sandy Hook shooting in 2014. For police, he said the most important thing that has changed with training is having officers go straight to the threat.

“We have to stop that threat right away,” he said.

While they have worked with ALICE training, he said the department is working to transition their training to CRASE, which is similar to ALICE in its response to a violent intruder except the police department is able to adapt certain pieces of information for the environment they are working in, like hospitals, which they work closely with in Iowa City.

He said they plan to switch over to CRASE training within the next year.

RELATED: Iowa City schools discuss safety and security systems after increased threats

At Iowa City schools, Bailey said the district uses two anonymous reporting programs to create access for people to report problematic behavior. One is Safe and Sound, which is an anonymous reporting software that will get sent to a dispatcher to disseminate and organize police response if necessary.

The other is Securly 24, which uses algorithms to pinpoint words, phrases, and pictures on school computers to identify possible threats. He said the department ultimately takes every threat seriously.

Kate Callahan, director of student services at the Iowa City Community School District, works on a newly formed safety committee that was created by the district last year. The committee is composed of department heads to review safety features at a district level. She said the committee meets weekly to discuss these topics.

She said the primary focus of the committee is looking at the safety features of their buildings. Each location has an emergency radio for emergency communication, secured building entrances, and cameras.

She said the district gives law enforcement a floor layout of each of their buildings, and they work to create a comprehensive safety audit to evaluate the safety measures in the schools on an annual basis. Shatterproof window film is also in the early stages of being installed in the buildings.

New staff go through ALICE training, and drills with staff happen annually when no students are present. Staff will also participate in two-hour-long violent intruder drills facilitated by police annually.

In these training sessions, students are not present, however, Callahan said that is something they are reconsidering this year.

“‘I Love U Guys’ Foundation has some training materials that we’re reviewing right now to determine if they are trauma-informed before we conduct the training with students. So that’s on the docket this year,” she said.

The district uses the “I Love U Guys” approach for their standard response protocol if a situation were to happen. The protocol includes different events and the response that will be put in place, such as secure, lockdown, evacuate, or shelter.

She said mental health of students is a priority within the district because it enables them to get ahead of situations before they become dangerous. While they do not train students in these scenarios, she said spreading awareness about reporting concerns in the district has been a priority.

“If we can get in front of the situation, that means nothing’s happened yet, and what we are doing is just providing support to a student and family of a student in need before there’s an issue,” Callahan said.

The district also has a threat assessment team trained to identify threats within the district.

“We have a lot of tools in our district that we have utilized or that we put in place, but it’s not just having those features in place. Staff needs to know what we have in place and then how to use it,” Callahan said.

A common sentiment shared among law enforcement is that school safety does not stop at training; a holistic response includes parents staying informed about their children and knowing when something is not right.

“I think everybody needs to have accountability for what’s going with their kids and get them the appropriate help they need when there’s a crisis developing,” Wilson said. “We all have stressors in our life, whether we’re adults, the elderly, or kids, and we just need to be in tune to that.”