Schools

Albany Schools Think About the Unthinkable

In the wake of the Sandy Hook school massacre and other school shootings, the Albany school district is among many districts considering new training programs to deal with a school shooter. Albany is looking at the "ALICE" program.

By Alex Gronke

Just as school children during the Cold War practiced “duck and cover,” students in this century are learning new catch phrases and drills to deal with the specter of calamity in the classroom. School safety experts are debating the merits of strategies with names like “run, hide, fight” and ALICE, both of which are designed to save lives if a killer comes on campus.

After the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT late last year, many school communities in the East Bay looked anew at their safety plans and enlisted the help of local law enforcement to draft fresh guidelines for what have become known as active-shooter events.

Find out what's happening in Albanywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

For obvious reasons, school districts are not in a hurry to publicize the details of their school safety plans, but EdSource recently wrote that “run, hide fight” is becoming the preferred protocol for schools in California.

Promoted by the federal Department of Education, “run, hide, fight” is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: Run if you can; if you can’t run, hide; if you can’t hide, fight. It’s a departure from earlier counsel that advised students and staff to “shelter in place.” The “run, hide, fight” strategy even permits teachers to ignore lockdown orders if circumstances demand fighting or fleeing, according to EdSource.

Find out what's happening in Albanywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

ALICE, an acronym for alert, lockdown, inform, counter and evacuate, also advises students to fight back or confuse an intruder by hurling whatever’s handy in the gunman’s direction. Like the last part of “run, hide, fight,” the idea of teaching elementary age children to fight is controversial.

Plans in Albany, other East Bay school districts

The Albany school district is reviewing the ALICE training program, said Peter Parenti, Director of Curriculum and Instruction for the Albany Unified School District.

"Albany USD is committed to learning new strategies that will help keep students and staff safe," he said. "... We will first engage in conversations with the Albany Police Department and then move forward from there."

In Berkeley, shortly after the Dec. 14 massacre at Sandy Hook, the school board in January authorized up to $50,800 to hire a consultant, Edu-Safe Associates, to conduct a safety audit of Berkeley Schools.

Berkeley Unified School District staff are now reviewing the consultant's preliminary report in preparation for a report and possible recommendations to be taken to the board, probably in October at the earliest, according to district spokesman Mark Coplan. 

The anticipated cost of implementing consultant and ataff recommendations have been estimated to be in the $500,000 range, he said.

Dr. Tony Shah, student services director for Castro Valley Unified School District, said the district is evaluating ALICE, but administrators have not settled on a specific protocol. That doesn’t mean the district hasn’t been planning for a worst-case scenario. Working with the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department, the district developed individual safety plans in the event of an intruder for each school site, according to Shah. Last school year, sheriff’s deputies practiced a hostage situation on a CVUSD campus, and students this year will have several opportunities to practice what to do in an active-shooter event.

CVUSD superintendent Jim Negri said research shows students feel safer the more they drill. But he also said adults need to take care about timing and providing age-appropriate information. Doing a drill immediately after a real-life tragedy could compound anxiety for children already traumatized by what they’ve seen on television news.

Kevin Johnson, Senior Director of Pupil Services for Pleasanton Unified School District, said that coordinating with the cops who would be first on the scene is key to making a good plan. “We want the police to come in and not have to worry about what our plan is,” Johnson said. After Sandy Hook, PUSD officials took their school safety plans to the Pleasanton Police Department. “We were looking for, and received clear direction from the police department about student safety,” Johnson said.

Last year students in the Pleasanton district practiced a new hiding drill, where entire classrooms of children crowded into safe spaces and had to be quiet. The drill certainly was eyeopening for students and parents alike, as it brought attention to modern-day threats and sparked conversations at home about what’s expected of pupils in worst-case scenarios.

Administrators at Alameda Unified School District also invited police officers and fire department officials to review school safety plans in the weeks after Sandy Hook. The public safety experts “conducted... assessments at about 80 percent of the district’s school sites (including charter schools), using a checklist developed by the federal government’s Secret Service Department,” according to AUSD’s Susan Davis.

“That checklist includes issues such as ‘red dot’ locations, alarm systems, window coverings, sign-in procedures, lockdown procedures (hard and soft), public address systems, and emergency preparedness plans and supplies. Issues that were identified were then resolved either by the district’s Maintenance and Operations and Facilities department or by APD or AFD,” Davis wrote in an email.

In June, officials with the Walnut Creek School District met with officers from the Walnut Creek Police Department to discuss “safety measures in case of an intruder,” according to Patricia Wool, Walnut Creek School District’s Superintendent. Wool also said the district has installed new outdoor loudspeakers on all school sites so that students can hear directions if something happens at lunch or recess.

To be sure, the odds of a shooter attacking a campus are vanishingly small. A statistician with the federal government reminded EdSource that every year suicide claims the lives of more children than do gunmen on school campuses. Still, CVUSD superintendent Negri notes that fires and earthquakes have been responsible for zero student deaths on campus in California for the last five decades. The same cannot be said of school shootings.

The idea of taking cover under your desk to survive a thermonuclear blast has become a risible reminder of Cold War delusion and paranoia. One hopes that in coming years “run, hide, fight” will also be a relic rather than a requirement. 

Patch editor Charles Burress contributed to this report.

Related article: -------------------

Don't miss any news from Albany Patch. Get the day's headlines and events – plus any breaking news alerts – by subscribing to the Albany Patch email newsletter. Just click “Get the newsletter” at the top of the site when you’re signed in.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here