I am passionate about many things. Those of you who know me, know that I am passionate about fundraising, recycling, upcycling, and energy efficiency. I have been involved in programs such as Schools For Energy Efficiency (SEE Program), Box Tops For Education, Teracycle, Project 4 Teens, and even co-created "Youth Action Force", a community organization aimed at getting the youth more involved in the community. So, when I buy in, I buy in big and give full effort into something that I am passionate about. I just was introduced and trained in something that wasn't even on my radar a few months ago.
For many, many years, the school I worked at participated in five stated mandated school lockdown drills, as every Minnesota school is required to do by state law. At the school I was at, it was called a Code Red drill. So, like we were trained year after year, we supported the traditional lockdown scenario of locking the door, turning off the lights, and getting the students and staff into a corner that was out of sight of the windows of the hallway and just sit. And by sit, I mean... sit, and sit, and sit, and sit. Granted our drills were only a few minutes long, waiting and anticipating for a law enforcement officer to come shake our door handle to make sure it was locked, was pretty stressful. It increased your heart rate, and made your anxiety get to new heights. The foolish thing about this drill was expecting a room full of students to be absolutely silent. In fact, law enforcement would tell us that if this was a real lockdown scenario, then we would be sitting in silence for possibly hours. That should've been my first red flag in realizing that this method of practice was simply not realistic.
One of the first Code Red drills I participated in was in a class that included a student that was very angry at everything in life, including the school staff that was attempting to help him. I was worried that this particular student was going to purposely make noise during the drill to alert law enforcement that there were students in that room, which in turn would alert a real active shooter that there were students in this particular room. As time went on during the drill (we were several minutes into the drill), everyone was doing a great job being quiet and was successfully participating in the drill. Just as the anticipation of our classroom door knob being checked, a student next to me opened and shut a cabinet door loudly. It was not the student that I was concerned about during the drill, instead it was a student who was diagnosed with Tourette's Syndrome and just simply could no longer handle the task of being absolutely silent. That was only after just a few minutes. The funny thing is that the student that I was most concerned about, was the only student to quietly tell the student who had opened and shut the cabinet to be quiet, and he did it respectfully. This should've been my second red flag, the fact that there are many special needs students who are a part of an inclusive environment that may not be able to handle this model of practice. It wasn't until an alternative was introduced to me that finally caused me to see those red flags and realize that we had been practicing for many years, was simply ineffective and not the solution we were looking for.
A few months ago, the school resource officer for the district that I worked for, introduced the lockdown procedures that the local law enforcement was endorsing. I was intrigued. It was a brief one hour summary session to the key people in the school I was working in. At first, the ideas of the ALICE Training Institute seemed far fetched for me. After all, I spent nearly 10 years learning the traditional system, but I kept an open mind. After the one hour session, I wanted to hear more.
I was presented the opportunity to go to a two day training to become a certified instructor for the ALICE Training Institute and I was the first on my team to become trained. I will tell you that I had some reservations about going through with the training because it was considered a "reality based training". For this training, by registering, I was agreeing to a waiver of liability and and also a waiver of injury and death. That is not something that comes up very often when you go to an educational training. The email I received from the instructor of the course informed me to wear a heavy sweatshirt or jacket to the first day of training to avoid injury during the artillery portion of the training that was going to include real life scenarios. This was the part I was literally nervous about, but I told myself to buck up and deal with it. It was too important to back out of.
So, ALICE, came into existence in 2001 and didn't arrive in Minnesota until 2013. The purpose of ALICE is to give people, especially educators, options in an active shooter situation. ALICE is an acronym that stands for Alert Lockdown Inform Counter Evacuate. It gives a person options no matter what type of active shooter situation that may occur. After my 16 hour training to become certified, I quickly created a 50 slide presentation where I can educate people on how to save as many lives as possible in an active shooter situation. I am totally sold on ALICE and I am passionate about it. There were a half a dozen law enforcement officers in the training that I participated in and it was really cool to see that, because it tells me that communities and schools are working together to keep their environments safe.
I did my first very brief introduction to the staff I currently work with about a week ago, and it was only 20 minutes long and barely scratched the surface of the program. After that 20 minutes, I had several staff that approached me asking for the two to four hour program that I am instructed to teach. The interest was there and people want to be informed. I didn't expect that reaction after just a 20 minute intro, but it showed me that I was effective in sharing my newest passion, which is helping people save lives.
After looking at Columbine High School in Colorado, Red Lake School in Minnesota, Chardon High School in Ohio, Virginia Tech College, and Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut, it shows that this can happen anywhere and happen at anytime. In my very brief research, there have been 178 school shootings since the tragedy at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado in 1999. Now think about all the active shooting situations that don't take place at schools, such as the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, the workplace shootings at Accent Signage in Minneapolis or in Kansas at the lawn mower factory. Don't forget about the shootings that have also occurred in retail stores, shopping malls, and restaurants and fast food places. The ALICE program can be used in all of these scenarios and really is the teaching of a newer life skill.
I am excited to continue to educate people on this program that I was just certified to instruct this past May. It really changed my perspective on a lot of things, and I have a new found higher level of respect for the victims of such an awful act. I hope I never have to ever encounter a real life situation with an active shooter, but I feel better today knowing that I am better prepared and have more options if I do.
#ALICE
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