La Crescent-Hokah School District- La Crescent, MN
“Lockdown is no longer enough.” That’s the increasing tenor of the conversation across the country when it comes to school safety. In the unfortunate – but unlikely – event of an armed assailant within a school building, districts have made it a practice to lock classrooms, turn out the lights and hide under desks, hoping to evade trouble. But a national training institute suggests more can be done to decrease the chances of harm. According to La Crescent Police Chief Doug Stavenau, who was at the training, enough evidence exists that shows that, once law enforcement arrives at the scene of an incident, most of what’s going to take place already has. However, the most eye-opening portion of the training, according to local officials, was a day spent role playing an actual crisis where participating school districts first used the procedures they have in place to respond, then were asked to put that aside and focus on using ALICE tactics.“This approach provides more options to address whatever scenario may be coming in,” Superintendent Ron Wilke said. “After you go through this training, you think, ‘Yeah, this makes a lot of sense.’” Read more
