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other students in the classroom at risk.”

“That was a conversation we had with staff afterwards, because we did have one teacher open the door for a student after the student knocked and said ‘let me in,’” she said. “We just talked about the process and why we can’t open the classroom door for anyone.”

Angie Servi, a board member from Hamburg, asked Hanson where a student should go if they can’t gain access to a classroom during a lockdown.

“So, ultimately we want those students to evacuate the building,” Hanson said. “We are training students that if they are in the hallway during a school lockdown then they want to get outside as quickly as possible. If they can’t get outside, then they need to find some place to hide in the school. Of course, if it was a fire drill, then we want everyone to go outside.”

Redmann said Athens Elementary had custodian Tanner Nowacki use the PA in his maintenance room to announce the lockdown drill. He re-enacted a situation in which he gave the description of an adult male with gray hair, a yellow sweatshirt, squeaky boots and a large bag in the school building headed toward the gym. A situation was made up in which the adult male was frustrated with the principal’s response to a behavioral consequence and came to school unexpectedly to demand another meeting with the principal.

“All the students were accounted for in their classrooms, which was a great thing,” Redmann said. “Teachers did a great job keeping students with behavioral needs quiet. The building was eerily quiet.”

Redmann said her school has changed its process of communicating with parents during a school safety lockdown drill.

“We have backed off quite a bit in the sense of informing parents — not that it’s not important and not that we want to say that we are normalizing it — but we let them know that we are going to have a drill and when it is over,” she said. “When we first started having drills, we would explain to parents the difference of each drill and the lead up to it and how it went, and I thought we received a great response back to what we did this time.”

Middle/high school principal Juli Gauerke-Peter said her school building went into a lockdown drill, which lasted 15 minutes.

“I thought staff did a great job of keeping the kids quiet and getting them to a safe zone,” she said.

Other business

■ The board approved the hiring of Jerry Weigel as eighth grade girls basketball coach and Sayre Ystad as seventh grade girls basketball coach; volunteers Jared Ystad as an middle school girls basketball coach, Stevie Klockziem and Tonda Nicholson as cheer team coaches; and Elle Gauerke as high school girls wrestling coach. The board also accepted the retirement of Lynn Pempeck as an elementary paraeducator.

■ Board members updated the district policy on automated external defibrilators (AEDss) and approved the FFA’s rodeo trip on Feb. 1, 2025.

■ The board met in closed session to discuss campus administrators and conduct a performance evaluation of the schools superintendent. No action was taken.

■ The public can access the district’s website to watch a livestream of each school board meeting which are typically held at 5 p.m. on the third Monday of each month. Videos of previous meetings held since October are available on the school district’s website for residents to watch.