Colby School District Changes How it Conducts Active Shooter Training
Tuesday, October 15th, 2019 -- 10:46 AM
(WSAW) -The Colby School District is changing how it conducts active shooter training after students and staff thought last year's training was real.Students spent Monday participating in ALICE Training which stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate. Many people participate in this type of training as a way to prepare for an active shooter. “It’s wasn’t a surprise one like the one we had a year ago,” said Erin Voss who is the Student Council President of the Colby High School. “I know that a lot of people got anxiety and were really upset about the last one.” Last school year many people weren’t told about the training because the school wanted to gather an authentic response, but this year the school took a different approach. A week leading up to the training, staff discussed the training with their students and letters were sent to parents. “We just want to make sure students feel empowered and can handle any situation,” added Donna Schmidt, who is the school counselor.
“It was very positive this year. We did a lot to prepare them. We started out sending a note to parents introducing ALICE to all the parents so they have an opportunity to talk with kids before we start teaching about it.” Students were told to go to the gym to watch a mock basketball game that would be interrupted by someone posing as an active shooter. After the exercise students debriefed the activity with teachers. “It’s really scary because you don’t think it will ever happen here and for us to be training it makes it feel like it might happen and I hope it never does,” added Voss.
The training was in partnership with local law enforcement officers. For elementary school students, staff practiced ALICE with a bad wolf rather than an active shooter. “It’s unfortunate that they have to do this but it’s becoming a common occurrence lately,” said Patrick Leichtnam, who is the school's Resource Officer. Colby School District holds ALICE training every year.
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