Triton is going to be putting a new and improved set of safety drills in place for students and staff.

Starting in the new year Triton students will be getting training on a new standardized safety protocol to help with threats.

“The program that we are kind of adopting looks at a whole host of different areas.  So ALICE was more focused on an intruder in the building, an active shooter like someone that’s a threat in this workplace.” said Triton Principal Patrick Kelley

To many students, mass shootings feel like they are becoming more and more common.  The thought of something bad happening to you or a loved one is scary.  In those types of situations you need to know what the best course of action is.  Mass shootings have happened across the United States lately,  just a few examples from this year were the massacre in Uvalde, Texas on May 24, the Walmart shooting in Chesapeake, Va on November 22, and a shooting at a medical building in Tulsa, Oklahoma on June 1.  The list goes on.  

According to forbes.com “611 Mass Shootings” by Brian Bushard, in 2022 alone there have been 611 mass shootings and we are not even done with the year yet.  This is the second worst year of mass shootings since 2021 with 690.  As of Nov 25, 2022, 39,935 people have died from gun violence this year and 35,351 people have been injured in gun related violence this year. This is third most since they started collecting gun violence data.  

According to vox.com “How the Uvalde Police Failed” by Fabiola Cineas, it took police 1 hour 14 minutes and 8 seconds to apprehend the suspect. The police had enough resources but delayed going into the classroom for more than one hour. The shooter entered the school at 11:33 and three minutes later 11 officers entered the building, nine of them with rifles.  This is enough to isolate the shooter.  At 11:37, the shooter had fired another 11 rounds and was now in the classroom. The officers did not enter the classroom until 12:50.

This will not be the case should any similar situation happen in our school, say police. 

“In the event of weapon-related violence in the school, police will always enter the school and engage the threat immediately. Period,” said Officer John Lucey

At Triton because  we have a school police officer, it means that the police-response time would be virtually zero.

“If I am absent from school, the first officer on scene would be expected to enter the school and engage the threat immediately, with or without backup.” said Officer Lucey.

Statistics show that an armed suspect in a school has never successfully broken into a locked classroom.  Because of this, research shows that in most situations the best option is to stay in a locked classroom and find shelter. 

“Most of the time and what the people from this foundation shared that we have been following up on is that in any type of lock down situation their research shows that the most effective thing you can do is stay inside a locked classroom and stay out of sight,” said Triton Principal Patrick Kelley. 

In the new protocol that Triton will be putting into place, there will be different ways of doing certain things in certain situations.  In all of the new procedures, the school will be doing a public address to parents and to students in the school for every situation.  

One example might be when the school is placed in a “Hold.” An announcement would be made similar to: “Triton has been placed in a Hold as a precaution.  This situation  may impact student dismissal.  Please check your email for more information.”  That would be what a public address would look like when given to parents over text message.

There will be new protocols that some students and staff might not have been introduced to like a “secure” protocol which means that there is a threat outside of the school and all students and staff are inside the school and no one is allowed in or out of the school.  

Or a situation that might involve the new “evacuate” protocol.  This would mean that the students and staff would have to leave the school and go somewhere else.

Some Triton students feel like we haven’t had enough training on these topics and that if something bad happened, they wouldn’t know what to do.

“We haven’t had a lock-down since seventh grade and I don’t what I would do.” said Junior Gabby Siy.

When asked if they feel safe here some people have differing opinions.

“I feel safe but I do believe that we need to practice these drills.” said Junior Mallory Johnson.