School safety training
By Dana Griffin
dgriffin@abc6.com
@DanaGriffinABC6
After Columbine,
Some of the tools come from the A.L.I.C.E system: Alert Lock down, Inform, Counter, Escape.
Smithfield High School Assistant Principal, Dr. Renee Palazzo said, “In the past we didn’t provide options. We simply said hide in the corner and hope someone doesn’t come in to injure you. Now, we’re saying you have options based on the information so it’s never anything we would fully implement or fully practice but it is something we will continue to talk about, we will continue to reflect on and we will revise if necessary.”
The tools were created based on our nation’s most horrific mass shootings in collaboration with fire, police and EMA.
“We’re in a rural setting so some of the things we talked about are easier where as in an inner city school like Providence or Warwick, may have a harder time in regards to evacuation and relocating students,” said Smithfield High School Principal, Dan Kelley.
For safety we can’t share emergency plan details but one tool that may have worked better at Virginia Tech would have been for students to try to escape a room rather than hide inside.
Bristol-Warren school committee member, John Saviano said, “The fact that they tell us things that we automatically assume are supposed to be the right way and now we’re finding out from experience of other occasions that have taken place– circumstances in other parts of the country- that now what we have to do is basically some of the things have to be totally reversed from what we’re originally thinking.”
Every emergency plan is not suitable for every situation; today’s training can be a guide for schools to make plans based on putting their student’s safety first.
©2015 ABC6/WLNE-TV. All Rights Reserved.
