School Shooting "Response" Options?

School Shooting Response

The Greenfield Daily Reporter reports that Appleton, WI schools are considering ALICE.  ALICE stands for Alert-Lockdown-Inform-Counter-Evacuate.  With each new shooting, schools are looking for a quick fix, based upon emotions from Sandy Hook and other shootings, and ALICE seems to give it.  But does it really provide what people hope?

Analysis

Michael Dorn, in a soon-to-be-released blog, outlines some hidden financial burdens of this program in the form of workmen's comp claims.  There is also a lack of a research base, and issues with implementation of poor training practices.

Around the country, Safe Havens International has found schools that have replaced their emergency plans with ALICE, which is not for what ALICE was intended.  While such implementation is not at the direction of any ALICE proponent, this shows the care that schools need to take when implementing a new program.  The courts require, and parents expect, due diligence by the school when considering changes to a school's emergency plans.

Some questions parents should ask of their schools, and schools should ask of themselves:
1. Does the school utilize All-Hazards planning?
All-Hazards planning helps a school prepare to face any threat, natural or man-made, that the school has identified as a viable risk.  A 'proactive response' strategy like ALICE is best used as a tool in this toolbox, not as a plan in and of itself.

2. Is the school properly training its staff in the implementation of its emergency plan?
The workmen's comp claim mentioned above are a sign of improper training.  Are the teachers actually being trained, or are they being presented to?  Training involves the attainment of an established criteria that demonstrates basic competence, followed by repetitive training that keeps the learned skill fresh and possibly even increase the level of competence.  Presenting is just passing along information, and passes along the burden of retaining the knowledge to the recipient.

Specifically, a program like ALICE is teaching teachers, and in some cases students, how to employ Close Quarter Combat (CQC) against a shooter.  While we can all agree that passively sitting in a room and getting shot is a bad thing, telling a lay person what to do without giving them the true means to implement it is just as bad.

A soldier in US Army Basic Training is provided 40 hours of basic hand-to-hand training.  This provides a trainee with the basic knowledge of unarmed combat, and is at least 20 times more instruction than an ALICE trainee receives.

3. SHOULD a school be providing such training to its staff and students?
There is an old saying, "Just because one can do a thing doesn't mean a person should do that thing."  We can tell our teachers and children to attack an attacker without giving them the proper tools, but should we?

People enter into law enforcement and the military knowing ahead of time what may be expected of them.  There is extensive screening and training that takes place to allow these people, who already have a propensity to deal with aggression, to face aggression.

Education is not one of those professions.  It is a caring, nurturing profession that does not lend itself to facing aggression. Do we want this profession to turn into one in which steely-eyed, square-jawed warriors will face any threat?  While this sounds great, in theory, how practical is it?

Great consideration should be given before we turn our schools into Spartan enclaves.  In subsequent posts, I will examine facets of ALICE, and provide sound, researched tactics that will help schools better respond in the unlikely event a shooter enters their school.