Following last week’s tragedy at Marysville-Pilchuck High School, Bremerton School District Superintendent Aaron Leavell sent a reassuring automated phone message to parents and guardians of local students.

“We wanted you to be aware of this situation as your child may need your support and reassurance when situations like this happen,” Leavell said.

Leavell noted that the district has monthly drills to prepare for lockdowns, fire evacuation and earthquake preparedness, but hopes to never have a real situation.

“Today’s events are a grim reminder that there are reasons these drills are necessary,” Leavell said following the Marysville shooting. “We are fortunate to have a School Resource Officer from the Bremerton Police Department and a close partnership with local law enforcement and have asked them to be more visible around our schools for the remainder of today.”

The Bremerton Police Department is also always preparing for the worst-case scenario.

“We kind of have ongoing training and the active shooter scenario is one we discuss quite often,” said Capt. Tom Wolfe. “Whether we physically train or tabletop with different workgroups, it’s one we’ve done a lot of training on and plan on doing more training as things evolve.”

Wolfe said officers often visit Olympic College and Bremerton schools to familiarize themselves with campus layouts. An active shooter training was held at OC last year and law enforcement agencies are hoping to hold a similar exercise at Bremerton High School next year, Wolfe said.

“All the schools are mapped out and we have the ability to bring that up, but with that said, when it comes to an active shooter, the plan is basically go to the sound of the gunshots,” Wolfe said. “With as much information as we have, typically we’ll have somebody guiding us to where the shooter is. In the simplest terms, you follow the gun shots.”

Police responses to school shootings have changed dramatically over the years, especially since the Columbine High School massacre in 1999. Prior to that tragedy, police would set up containment and wait for the arrival of a SWAT team.

“Columbine taught us that’s not the way to handle things,” Wolfe said. “Now, we get to the shooter as fast as possible and contain them so they’re no longer able to continue to hurt people. The principal we work under is locate, isolate and evacuate.”

Patty Glaser, a school district spokeswoman, said district officials continuously look at and think about ways to keep kids safe in the event of an emergency.

“One thing we have added to our discussions last year is to work with a nearby business near our schools for an off-site relocation area if one is needed,” she said. “Specifically, to address if we had an emergency and needed to transport our students off-site because of either police activity or a leak or flooding of some kind.”

Another example of being better prepared in the event of an emergency came last month during the “Great Shakeout 2014” earthquake drill. The district enacted its Emergency Operations Center and worked the drill as if it were a real event, “allowing us to communicate with each school and practice how to set up the EOC quickly,” Glaser said.

“We will do this a couple of times throughout the year so all staff know how to participate when necessary — especially if administrators or others who have been trained happen to be out of the district that day,” she added.