Arika Herron | IndyStar

Jenna Watson, jenna.watson@indystar.com, IndyStar

The teacher who was injured while stopping a shooter at Noblesville West Middle School last year said this week that active shooter training involving shooting teachers with projectiles is unnecessary.

Jason Seaman was shot three times last year while tackling the armed 13-year-old student in his science class. The boy, who was sentenced to a juvenile corrections facility late last year, shot classmate Ella Whistler seven times before Seaman was able to stop him. Seaman, who still has two bullets in his body, said the idea that teachers could learn something from training in which they’re being shot at — as some lawmakers have suggested — is “ignorance.”

“I don’t think you need to inflict hysteria, anxiety or pain on a teacher to make them know the severity,” he said in a phone interview Monday with IndyStar.

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"It's got to do with reality and making sure they experience the emotions and adrenaline," said Sen. Jeff Raatz, chair of the Senate's education committee and author of the amendment to allow for the use of pellets.

Seaman supports ALICE training

Jenna Watson/IndyStar

As one of the only people in the state who has been in the situation that training is supposed to prepare teachers for, Seaman said it’s impossible to simulate reality. He supports the ALICE training that Noblesville Schools has in place and said he was able to handle the shooting in his own classroom so well because he was prepared for it.

ALICE — which stands for alert, lockdown, inform, counter, evacuate — is one of several popular active shooter training models that encourages teachers and students to fight back against an active shooter in certain situations. The teachers in the Monticello incident were supposed to be receiving ALICE training from their local sheriff’s department, but it was atypical. The training does not usually involve airsoft guns or the mock execution the teachers there described.

Seaman said all new teachers at Noblesville receive ALICE training.

“I had mentally prepared what would happen in my room if a shooting were to happen there,” he said. “I had thought about it before.”

Teachers are fully aware of what’s at stake, he said, without being shot at.

“If you’re implying that teachers don’t value the lives of their students, that they’re not taking it seriously and need to be shot at to prove that,” he said, “that’s just ridiculous.”

While many in education have said the use of projectiles goes too far, most lawmakers have signed off on the provision that allows it with teacher consent.

“It’s a big difference if you’re rounding a corner or something and stick your head out and there is somebody going ‘pew pew pew’ or something like that or if you have a face mask on and take a shot to the face or the chest (with an airsoft or other projectile),” said Rep. Jim Lucas, R-Seymour. “Yes, it hurts. But it also teaches you a life-saving lesson.”

A stalemate over mandatory training

Lucas is the author of House Bill 1253, a bill dealing with firearm training for teachers, which is where the projectile language landed. Lawmakers in the House and Senate have entered into something of a stalemate over whether training should be required for teachers and other school employees who want access to a gun on school grounds.

Currently, Indiana allows local school boards to decide whether to allow firearms and what, if any, training would be required for those who have access to them. House Bill 1253 set out training guidelines for schools that want to use state money to pay for firearms training.

The Senate amended the bill to make that training mandatory for anyone who wants access to a gun on school property.

“We didn’t support the House version as it came over, and our support for the Senate position is pretty staunch right now,” said Sen. Travis Holdman, R-Markle.

The bill’s author, though, is opposed to mandatory training.

“I encourage training for anybody that carries a firearm,” Lucas said. “I’m not a mandate guy. The Constitution doesn’t mandate anything to exercise your constitutional right.”

Lucas said creating a training mandate would be moving backward for the state, but wouldn’t say if he’d kill the bill over it. If the bill dies, so too does any prohibition on the use of projectiles in teacher training. Negotiations are ongoing, Lucas said.

Time for those negotiations is running short, though. House Speaker Brian Bosma said he intends to wrap up the legislative session this week.