Safety takes a more proactive turn

By Eli Lanehart 
Business Manager 

Students may remember in years past that safety precautions have been centered around the passive-resistance of “staying down” in a classroom, waiting for a hostile to pass. This all is about to change as Red Lion is taking on the safety system that has been storming the nation - ALICE.

“It’s a shift to how we usually do our lockdowns when we would potentially have problems,” Principal Grant Gouker said.

This change of safety procedures was initiated due to the tremendous amount of school shootings that has happened in the past few years. These events were detrimental to the American spirit and raised massive amounts of caution towards the safety initiatives that were present. Evidently, there was no attack plan against the shooters, which then started ALICE.

Being an acronym for “Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate,” ALICE presents a more aggressive approach towards school safety.

The program instructs students to essentially fight back against a school shooter or any hostile that may be presented. Students are encouraged to utilize desks and chairs, throwing them at the attacker.

Depending on the proximity of the attacker, students are also enforced to evacuate and run out of the school. Since this tactic of safety is centered around aggression, it has become a force of much efficiency.

The ALICE website reports, “Protection and safety must be the priority in an Active Shooter event or Terrorist Attack. Circumstantial and operational concerns vary in every new situation.

ALICE Training provides options and classes that address the unique challenges specific to Police/LE, K-12 Schools, Healthcare Facilities, Higher Education, Businesses, Government, and Houses of Worship.”

Issues regarding personal safety are not just affecting the classroom. ALICE has been started within churches, businesses, hospitals, government buildings and even personal use, as shown in the Website’s quote.

The site everytownresearch.com states, “On an average day, 93 Americans are killed with guns,” while also saying, “On average there are nearly 12,000 gun homicides a year in the United States.”

With the ALICE initiative, people have a better chance of reducing those death rates and conquering this issue that has been ravaging the world for decades. Red Lion’s participation in such a cause means the district will help ALICE innovate safety for the future, also being a substantial part of the fight against gun violence.

Sources: https://everytownresearch.org/gun-violence-by-the-numbers/
https://www.alicetraining.com/



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