Iowa City Community School District- Iowa City, IA
Iowa City school and law enforcement officials conducted safety drills Tuesday to train faculty and staff how to handle situations involving a violent intruder. “In order to learn something it’s really important to practice it, so that’s why we’re doing the drill,” said Susie Poulton, the district’s director of Health Services who oversaw the training. Poulton said the police departments went through various scenarios with each building’s faculty and staff, spending about two hours training in each building. The training was mandatory for office staff and administration and optional for teachers, although Poulton said about 80 percent to 85 percent of faculty attended. ICPD Lt. Bill Campbell, who helped oversee training, said the steps did not necessarily need to be applied in that order, but that the ALICE framework gives educators a variety of options to consider, depending on the situation. The last time the district conducted this kind of training was in 2013, but Campbell and Poulton said the goal is for it to become annual. Read more
