ALICE aims to stop shootings.

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  • Ian McColgin
    Senior Member
    • Apr 1999
    • 51646

    ALICE aims to stop shootings.

    [IMc - I did not see this last week. It's an interesting shift in response strategy despite the creepy acronym.]

    Bourne to teach students how to confront school shooter

    By Beth Treffeisen

    Posted Nov 30, 2018 at 9:22 PM
    Updated Dec 1, 2018 at 6:31 AM

    In wake of fake threat, parents get primer on planned training program.

    BOURNE — With school shootings making headlines across the country, the Bourne school district is taking steps to train staff members and students on how to counter an active shooter if such a situation happens closer to home.

    “I think it’s a sad state we have to do it,” a middle school parent said Thursday night.

    A school security forum was held at Bourne High School to inform parents of the active shooter training that students will take part in after the holidays.

    On the morning of Oct. 3, the middle school principal received a phone call saying an active shooter was in the school. Although the threat was determined not to be credible, the experience was real, schools Superintendent Steven Lamarche said.

    “We will not stop researching, reviewing, reflecting, adjusting and enhancing our safety program,” he said at the forum.

    Now, ALICE is the direction in which the school district is going, David Lundell, the middle school’s assistant principal, said.

    ALICE stands for alert, lockdown, inform, counter and evacuate. The ALICE program does not set a sequence of actions or steps, Lundell said. An individual may use only one part of the program or all five, he said.

    “It’s about options,” he said. “It’s about life skills, whether it is in a mall or in a school.”


    Research has shown that civilians have stopped active shooter events twice as often as police intervention, Lundell said. The reason, he said, is because they were already there.

    The old method of response told students to sit down and be quiet and hope that the next noise they heard at the door was a police officer, Bourne High School Assistant Principal Kenneth Girouard said.

    “ALICE thinks we can do more,” he said.

    Major changes include alerting people in the building with as much information as possible as to where the threat is, he said.

    If students go into lockdown and cannot evacuate, they are now asked to barricade the entrance with objects in the classroom such as desks, filing cabinets and chairs, Lundell said.

    The biggest change is to confront the intruder.

    Students and teachers are asked to gather objects in the room to throw at the intruder if he or she enters, Lundell said. “Remember there is strength in numbers,” he said.

    Scream, yell, throw things and keep throwing things, said Bourne police Detective Daniel Cox, school resource officer. A person cannot take the offensive when distracted, he said.

    Then, if possible, get five people, or one person per appendage, to bring the intruder down, Cox said. Dislodge the weapon from the aggressor and secure the weapon, he said.

    “The threat is real,” Cox said. “At this point it is about survival.”

    Although confrontation may not be easy to think about, the old strategy made students sitting ducks, Lundell said.

    Beyond ALICE training, other improvements have been made in the past few years to ensure student safety, Lamarche said.

    A few include making sure there is a single entry point at each school during the school day and making sure all hallway classroom doors are equipped with lockdown magnetic strips, he said.

    In addition, school principals are now connected with the Bourne police through a two-way communication system within their offices, he said.


    One idea for improving school safety includes finding a way to communicate to all students on their cellphones, parent Judy Ariagno said. Talking to her children after the incident in October, she learned that they found comfort in knowing what was going on by texting classmates and siblings in other buildings.

    “It was scary for us parents,” she said, and it was scary for students who had siblings in another school.

    Staff members are already trained in ALICE. A refresher class for teachers will take place Dec. 12. New staff will be trained Dec. 14.

    Students at Bourne Middle School will have training Dec. 14, and the rest of the students in the district will have a date set after the holiday break, Lamarche said.

    ″(School safety) priority is not just a job for me and for many others in our system and first responders,” he said. “It’s personal; we have children whose safety and well-being is part of every thought in the Bourne Public Schools for us.”

  • BrianY
    Left Wing Extremist
    • Apr 2004
    • 7942

    #2
    Re: ALICE aims to stop shootings.

    I went through ALICE training. It's empowering in a situation that inevitably makes you feel powerless.

    If the kids at Columbine had this training, many fewer would have died. They did as they were told - shelter in place, stay hidden and wait for help. Don't run, don't fight back. The shooters simply walked up to each of them and shot them.

    It's a sad commentary on the state of our society that school kids are receiving this training, but I'd rather have them do it than not just in case they find themselves in an active shooter situation in or outside of school.
    I rather be an American than a Republican.

    Comment

    • CWSmith
      New Hampshire
      • Nov 2008
      • 44020

      #3
      Re: ALICE aims to stop shootings.

      I've had talks with local school teachers I know. The outside doors in their building can be locked from more than one central button. Locks on classroom doors are improved. Cover is identified. Responses are established and practiced so they don't need to be thought about in an emergency.

      A lot of schools have so many external doors that I can't decide if they are safer or less safe.
      "Where you live in the world should not determine whether you live in the world." - Bono

      "Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip." - Will Rogers

      "Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others." - Groucho Marx

      Comment

      • Jimmy W
        SE USA MS or sometimes GA
        • Feb 2010
        • 29078

        #4
        Re: ALICE aims to stop shootings.

        I recently went back to my old high school to ask about donating a clarinet to the band. The doors that used to be the main front doors were locked and I was told to go around to the back. The back had double doors and one went through a metal detector. I walked through the metal detector and it beeped as I had cell phone, keys, change and other stuff in my pockets. No one around paid any attention to the beep and no one asked why I was there. I had to wait in line in the office to talk to someone. I left through the other door and not back through the metal detector.

        Comment

        • Jim Bow
          Normcore
          • Jul 2008
          • 24003

          #5
          Re: ALICE aims to stop shootings.

          Oakland University in Michigan has all students and faculty carry hockey pucks.
          They'll bombard the villain with a barrage of high velocity hard rubber.
          “Come, come, my conservative friend, wipe the dew off your spectacles and see the world is moving" - Elizabeth Cady Stanton

          Comment

          • Phil Y
            Banned
            • Apr 2010
            • 21066

            #6
            Re: ALICE aims to stop shootings.

            Extraordinary. You are describing life in a war zone. I think even our government would grant you asylum, provided you don't arrive by boat. They have a thing about boats. But fly in and apply for asylum, I reckon youve got a good chance.

            Comment

            • skuthorp
              Senior Member
              • Jan 2002
              • 73625

              #7
              Re: ALICE aims to stop shootings.

              I had a look round a new school being built here the other day. There are few internal doors, the walls are moveable partitions, can't say about entrances or how many.

              Re#5. Hockey pucks today, guns tomorrow……………….
              War zone indeed.

              Comment

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