Council Rock has approved a new safety initiative as well as a revised lockdown communication protocol.
District representatives said after meeting with local police to review lessons learned from an April 16 lockdown at Richboro Middle School, they chose to implement changes to the communication protocol.
The district said it learned three lessons from that lockdown. First, it must quickly communicate a general lockdown notification districtwide. Parents must also be clearly directed not to immediately go to a lockdown site. Finally, in the event of a prolonged lockdown, a staging area needs to be established for parents to safely gather and receive information.
As a result of those lessons and the meeting with local police, the district has adopted a new centralized lockdown communication protocol that incorporates those elements.
Additionally, the district will be implementing a new safety initiative called ALICE.
The school board on Thursday approved a three-year agreement with the ALICE Training Institute. ALICE, which stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate "teaches people to participate in their own survival, while leading others to safety," according to information from the district.
Council Rock says the ALICE model is being utilized by 4,150 police departments, 950 higher education institutions, and 4,200 K-12 school districts.
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According to the ALICE Training website, the "Counter" aspect of the training does not involve confronting the active shooter: "ALICE Training does not believe that actively confronting a violent intruder is the best method for ensuring the safety of those involved. Counter is a strategy of last resort. Counter focuses on actions that create noise, movement, distance and distraction with the intent of reducing the shooter’s ability to shoot accurately. Creating a dynamic environment decreases the shooter’s chance of hitting a target and can provide the precious seconds needed in order to evacuate."