GREEN COVE SPRINGS — Three at a time, newly hired Clay County Sheriff’s Office School Resource Officers trained to clear a hallway as they looked for students and an active shooter.

Step by step, they swapped positions, checked pretend doors and peeked around imaginary corners. Sgt. Steve Parker carefully critiqued every movement, and his comments were direct and forceful. After all, a child’s life may depend on perfection in a real-life situation.

Parker is the SWAT team commander with the agency’s Warrants and Fugitive Task Force.

“He’s definitely in his niche, for sure,” said Assistant Chief of School Safety and Youth Programs Jeremy Clark. “He’s been here 27 years. He’s one of our highest-trained tactical leaders within the agency. He’s been to the instructor school for a lot of this type of training.”

Clark said school deputies started on July 1 and have been in accelerated training sessions to prepare for the first day of school on Aug. 13.

“Training started on July 1, and they will be training right up until the day before school,” Clark said. “We don’t have as much time as we would like to have because of the transition, so we have to cram. Basically, every day is training.”

Three training days were at Green Cove Springs Junior High, where deputies were exposed to a school setting. On Thursday, July 11, they worked all day on drills inside the gymnasium. The session took on extra significance because the group was a blend of CCSO deputies, former Clay County District School Police Officers, and new hires. Clark said it was important that they all share the same training and communication skills.

“They needed exposure to alert training and advanced active assailant response training,” Clark said. “It’s a mouthful, but active shooter training is what people default to, but it really covers any kind of active assailant. And the type of training we utilize is evidence-based, real-world training that comes out of the University of Texas and a couple of other universities we teach through. “

Clark said CCSO also utilizes C3 Pathways, a consulting company and one of the premier active shooter incident management organizations that provides training and exercises.

The sheriff’s office will post a deputy in 41 of the county’s 47 public schools. Orange Park and Green Cove Springs police departments will have officers in schools within their city limits.

After school opens, Clark said the training will continue.

“At the end of this is, if you’re not training, you’re not preparing,” he said. “And if you’re not preparing, you’ll get caught unaware. It’s our mantra: not on our watch.

“We give them all the training that we could make it as real world as possible so that we can be ahead of that curve should the unthinkable ever happen in Clay County.”