Leominster Public School District- Leominster, MA
While there has always been a focus on keeping students safe in school, a seismic shift in thinking came after a mentally ill young man forced his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown in 2012 and murdered 20 students and six staff members. “Everyone walked away from the table early on and decided that we were going to embrace ALICE,” said Leominster Superintendent of Schools Jim Jolicoeur about the program, which is an acronym for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate. The ALICE training, said Detective Richard Gallant, “empowers the faculty in survivability.” The “counter” portion of the ALICE program, said Gallant and Jolicoeur, is one aspect of the training that gets the most attention because it provides strategies for use as a “last resort” in extremely dangerous situations, like a classroom intruder. Read more
