With school attacks and gun violence on the rise, should our lockdown procedures be reconsidered? ALICE is a new lockdown procedure being implemented in many schools across the country.

“I think we need to do some more research into ALICE,” said Principal Mr. Ruggere when asked about the program.

ALICE is a new lockdown procedure created by Greg Crane that stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Convey, and Evacuate. This is also known as the run-fight-hide procedure. ALICE has replaced the stay quiet and stay put procedure in 300 K-12 schools across the nation, according to ABC News.

The old procedure includes locking the doors and turning off the lights and sitting all together out of sight in silence. However, ALICE includes barricading entrances and coming up with a plan to attack the aggressor or evacuate the building.

During the Columbine School shooting in 1999, a class waited in the library for five minutes before the shooter entered and killed all 18 of them. ALICE says that during those 5 minutes they could have evacuated and survived with their program.

While ALICE has provided positive results for many schools and situations, it has its disadvantages. ALICE includes a lot of quick, impulsive, and creative thinking. While ALICE may work well for high school students, it does not for elementary school students. Younger students do not have the ability to fight against an aggressor like older students do.

So is ALICE right for Triton? Senior Abby Confalone said, “with our system now, the intruder knows what teachers and students will be doing, but with ALICE, schools would be able to outsmart the intruder.”

Other schools in Massachusetts practice ALICE, such as Tewksbury Public Schools.

Principal Ruggere said, “we have not decided if we are going to go to ALICE, so we are going to peel back and do the basic stay in place trainings.”

Ruggere is also concerned about the younger students who may not know how to react. “Even though some schools have rolled out ALICE, they are already changing the attack part,” Ruggere said. “Whatever it is that we choose is going to be the safest and right choice for us.”