What is happening at East?
From kindergarten through 12th grade, students are taught the necessary procedures to protect themselves in the event of a school shooting. For years, in many communities across the country, the protocol has been to lock the doors, close the blinds, and hide against the wall, but recent years have brought new procedures. This past semester, D303 has implemented the ALICE protocol, a new means of action during a critical incident.
ALICE Training begun in 2000 and over 5,500 schools K-12 have implemented it into their protocols.Over 18 million people have been trained through the program.The overall goal of the ALICE Training is to save lives by teaching individuals how to respond to an incident with confidence, reduce anxiety and mitigate risk by exceeding minimum active shooter response requirements.
East implemented the ALICE Training beginning this school year. The two-day training process began on Oct. 22, 2024, where students discussed the concepts of ALICE, what it stands for and how to respond safely and properly, ensuring they feel protected and supported throughout the process. Part of these discussions included testing students’ situational awareness using a video to see whether or not students noticed any unordinary activity. While watching the first video, a prompt was given to watch and count how many people got orange subs. Afterwards, the speaker in the video asked about the awareness of other things such as a pizza truck and a suspicious bag being put near the food truck. Then, teachers played the video again giving students a second chance to show the importance of situational awareness. Next, three scenarios were discussed in order to apply the ALICE teaching. Each component of ALICE was discussed separately to emphasize their importances. Not all responses to the scenarios were the same, showing that ALICE can be different for everyone. For example, while there is a designated meeting spot for students who are able to evacuate in a VCI, some students may choose to go to their or a friend’s house if doing so is safer or faster.
On Oct. 25, 2024, students participated in the Lockdown portion of ALICE and learned to properly barricade classroom doors. Different ways of barricading were discussed as classrooms differ. Certain classes had to be moved in order to do the training effectively, such as students who had study halls in the commons. Because there are so many entrances, the commons could not be barricaded and therefore students needed to relocate to properly barricade. For classrooms where there are few entrances, they were barricaded with chairs, desks and door handles were inhibited using ropes or similar items. For gym classes, strategies of evacuation and locking down were discussed. In most cases, students were told to evacuate. In the case of an intruder in the gym, students were told that they can lockdown by going into the locker rooms. With the implementation of ALICE-based training, East students are empowered to take their own roles in their safety during such incidents.
According to East’s SRO detective Jennifer Larsen, ALICE Training is beneficial not only during an incident but before as well. “ALICE protocols are helpful both before a Violent Critical Incident (VCI) and during a VCI. ALICE Training teaches individuals to be more aware of their surroundings. Through this increased situational awareness, people may observe things that others could have missed. These new observations could lead to alert/inform situations and a VCI could be prevented.”
Along with the ALICE Training protocol, many other tools have been implemented at East and throughout D303 to increase safety. These tools include limiting the number of entrances into the school upon arrival, posting a staff member at each entrance to check student identification, locking classroom doors and adding cameras to East’s buildings. Larsen also mentioned that the school district has begun collaborating with police departments by training school staff members in VCI protocol over the summer.
Why is this happening?
VCIs are serious concerns at East and around the country. Although such incidents seem to be new, they have been happening for a long time, according to Larsen. “School violence has been prevalent for a significant period of time. Now, with all the new technologies and variety of communication platforms available today, we learn about these events happening worldwide more frequently,” she said.
In a monograph on Workplace Violence by the FBI, the media’s impact on the knowledge of violent incidents is partially discussed. “As a result of this seemingly new trend [of workplace violence], mass murders in the workplace by unstable employees have become media-intensive events. In fact, the apparent rise in such cases may have been an impression created by this increased media attention.”
In the monograph, a study by the University of Iowa in 2001 was also discussed. The data showed that out of workplace violence, 95 percent were simple or aggravated assaults while 0.1 percent were homicides, though the extent of the data was said to be “scattered and sketchy.”
Still, the issue of VCIs is not to be dismissed. Since the tragic school shooting at Columbine High School in 1999–an event that caused changes to be made in school safety, public perception of safety and debates on gun safety to rise–more than 338,000 students in the U.S. have experienced gun violence at school, according to the New England Journal of Medicine. Not only that, but in 2022, there were more school shootings (46) than in any year since the Columbine tragedy.
What can be done to help?
The amount of violence at schools raises questions about what can be done to change this trend. Issues regarding the safe storage of guns have been shown to have an impact. According to Sandy Hook Promise, about 68 percent of guns used in gun-related incidents at schools were taken from a home, a friend or a relative. On top of this, the American Academy of Pediatrics said that nearly half of all parents with a weapon in the home wrongly believe their children don’t know where a gun is stored.
Another concerning issue is that most violent critical incidents do not happen without warning signs. According to the U.S. Department of Education and Secret Service, in four out of five school shootings, at least one other person had knowledge of the attacker’s plan but failed to report it.
The Sandy Hook Promise nonprofit organization has published a list of 10 warning signs that may indicate violence, noting that one of these signs does not mean that someone will become violent (see graphic).
According to the National Institute of Justice, other signs can include “showing outward signs of crisis… through social media and other means.” It is often found that “most leaks of K-12 mass shooting plans are not reported to authorities before the shooting.” This poses the question, what does one do if they notice such behaviors?
In situations like these, it’s important to report it to law enforcement. As stated on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security website, “if you see something, say something.” Here are the steps to follow in such situations: “Report who or what you saw, when you saw it, where it occurred and why it’s suspicious.”
We live in a society where there are many tragic situations when students must prepare for the possibility of a school shooting. However, at least the preparation gives students new ways to handle the crisis with the introduction of new processes like ALICE.
