ALICE Training offers an alternative solution during active shooter situation
Ever since the Columbine mass shooting in 1999, schools have been required to have a lockdown drill in which students lock the door and hide in the classrooms. As this is a more passive approach, programs like ALICE training have become more mainstream as they offer a more proactive approach.
ALICE stands for: “Alert,” “Lockdown,” “Inform,” “Counter,” and “Evacuate.”
It was created by a swat officer and teacher named Greg Crane. It’s meant to be a different way of approaching school shooting situations in which students have more flexibility in what they must do.
According to ALICE’s website, 4,200 k-12 school districts have implemented this training rather than standard lockdown drills–drills where students are told to stay huddled quietly in the corner with the lights off and door locked.
Both Kent State University and Kent City Schools have implemented ALICE training around the same time, five years ago. Dennis Love is principal of Kent Theodore Roosevelt High School.
“They let the students know that there’s options,” Love said. “You know you go through each one of the letters and we do the best we can to alert you what’s going on and if you can, either lockdown or evacuate the situation, get yourself to a safe place…”
In evacuations scenarios, checkpoints are set up so that when students are able to evacuate from the situation, they can go to those checkpoints and evaluate what they can do from there.
“We talk about being able to counter, you know, what that may mean in a classroom,” Love said. “As far as, can you throw books at the person, how can you use your purse?”
This may perhaps be one of the more controversial aspects of ALICE training according to critics of the program. Ken Trump is the president of the National School Safety and Security services. He says that ALICE training, while well-intended, is not sustainable, particularly in younger grades. Trump argues that it would be more difficult for young children to make those split second decisions.
“Counter”-ing is not all about fighting back however.
“How do you break a window?” Love said. “How do you barricade a door? Things like that.”
Being able to maneuver away from the attacker is just as much counter-measure as physically fighting back against him or her.
While recent events like the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting have made an impact on the national conversation of school shootings, the contents of ALICE training haven’t changed. The school does however practice frequent drills, such as a recent hall-change drill in between classes, which was a new drill put into practice.
Love said that the reason Kent Roosevelt made the switch over to ALICE training was in part by the fact that Kent State University began it as well.
“It was something that had really been incorporated after Columbine, but really once there was a school shooting in Chardon that’s when the district decided to move forward with ALICE training.”
Chardon is only about an hour away from Kent and suffered a school shooting back in 2012. Three students died.
While there is no set solution for a school shooting event, ALICE attempts to offer something different for students to consider.
“Before what people just thought about was ‘okay, I’ll just hide under this desk’ and everything could go away,” Love said. “ALICE is more of, ‘no, that’s not necessarily the case’ Huddling in the corner and hiding, the shooter could easily come in and add more casualties. In ALICE you have more of this idea of ‘it’s okay to run away, it’s okay to throw things, it’s okay to have to fight back.’”
Love said the point of the ALICE training is to essentially make it more difficult for the shooter to cause damage. By spreading out and fighting back, students are able to try and avoid further casualties.
ALICE training may or may not be a better alternative to lockdown drills. There is still disagreement as to its effectiveness. However, it’s growing popularity indicates that it’s not going anywhere.
