It’s never too early to prepare for an emergency and students and parents at Hunter Elementary did just that on Oct. 24. In conjunction with the Granite School District and local law enforcement, the school held its first reunification drill.

The purpose was to work through the process by which parents and guardians can pick up their students from the school or a designated evacuation site. The drill gave all stakeholders in such a situation a chance to see how the plan would work.

“If there is a gas leak inside the school, if there is an earthquake or some reason why we would need to take students out of the school, that’s what we’re preparing for now,” said Andrea Stringham, media relations spokesperson for the Granite School District. “That’s how we tell the kids and the parents how we look at this drill. To be prepared.”

There are too often headlines of violent situations at a school, but Stringham pointed out that in the past schools have had many other developments, such as plumbing or heating/cooling issues, where students need to leave the campus.

“This is just a practice for parents, for students and staff, and for the law enforcement agencies we work with,” she said.

At Hunter, the streets around the school were cordoned off with several police vehicles. Parents were notified by the school that a drill was being conducted. They gathered in front of the school and had to sign in at a table, showing their IDs and proving their names were on the registration cards and they were authorized to pick up students. They then moved up closer to the school where they were organized into groups alphabetically by their last names.

Inside the school, students were moved into a large lunchroom for safe keeping, and as parents finished and handed in their paperwork, runners took those slips of paper to where the students were waiting. Then parents walked to a location in the back of the school, where they were called to an entrance when their children were escorted out the doors.

“It’s a good time to join forces with all the entities before something happens, to make sure we see where any pain points are and fix anything that needs to be fixed,” Stringham said.

The Granite District does these reunification drills at least twice a year, usually once in fall and then again in the spring when the weather warms. This was the first time the drill has been done at Hunter Elementary.

“We switch up schools and invite other principals to come watch the drills,” Stringham said. “They can observe what the expectations are and ask our emergency manager questions.”

Around 500 families received notification about the drill, and District officials estimated that about half that many came to the school for the drill.