Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School – Northampton, MA

Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School aims to increase school safety with more than $160,000 in security upgrades and a commitment to better communication in the digital age. The new security initiatives also include training for all students and faculty in the “ALICE” protocol — or Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate — for responding to an intruder in the building. All faculty and administration were trained in the “ALICE” protocol last summer, and Brown said he plans to organize training for the students after his presentation. Brown noted that to “inform” means to move away from code words such as “Code Orange” or “Pink Elephant” that have been used in some schools in the United States, and to instead provide a specific description of the threat — such as a person with a gun walking into one of the buildings. Read more