WALTON COUNTY, GA (July 14, 2026) Beginning today, you may have noticed huge law enforcement and first responder activity at Youth Middle School. There is no need to panic since students are not yet back in school. It is the regular all-important training exercise by public safety personnel to ensure a high preparedness should a mass casualty event ever happen in the community – such as a school shooting like the one that took place in neighboring Barrow County in 2024.
Youth Middle School is the location this week for this 4-day safety training exercise with local emergency response teams. This will take place Tuesday, July 14, through Friday, July 17, 2026. During this time, you may see several emergency vehicles on or near YMS campus. Officials want you to know there is no emergency. This is a drill to help all involved practice and improve responses to emergencies. It is designed to help school staff and local first responders better prepare for emergencies.
The school campus will be closed during these dates for everyone’s safety and to ensure the drills go smoothly.
This inter-agency drill is part of ongoing training of law enforcement and emergency response personnel and is designed to give multiple agencies practice in coordinating the most effective response possible to an active shooter emergency under realistic conditions. This type of training exercises happen regularly and have done so since school shootings and other similar mass casualty events became a sad reality across the country.
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