As of Jan. 14, MHS staff was introduced to the new and improved lockdown procedure called ALICE. ALICE itself stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate, giving students and staff the option to fight or flee instead of sitting like ducks.

The staff went through three rounds of an exercise on the issue of an active shooter endangering their lives. They acted as students and had one colleague act as their “teacher” and another volunteer to act as the shooter. MHS liaison officer Deputy Joe Hammond and John Gurganus, the liaison officer from Airport High School, trained and supervised the exercises.

In the first round, the staff had to perform the original lockdown we currently have and at the end of the round, a great number of staff members were “shot” or pronounced “dead”.

In the second round, the staff was allowed to be proactive in the situation meaning to do what they could to keep the door closed. Few were pronounced “dead.”

In the last and third round of the training for the ALICE procedure, the staff was allowed to tear the room apart, attack the shooter, or flee. This time, most classrooms didn’t have any pronounced “dead.”

The ALICE drill gives students and staff options such as barricading the door, fighting back, or fleeing the school grounds if the gunman is on the opposite side of the building. Whereas the traditional drill had students and staff locking the doors, turning the lights off, and sitting in the corner of their classroom.

“The ALICE procedure teaches us how to be assertive instead of passive in the situation of a real lockdown,” teacher Ryan Flanary said. “I think a lot of students would join in on fighting back once they see a leader stepping up because they want to live rather than die.”

Ultimately, the ALICE program includes the staff and students deciding what happens when the gunman breaks into the room, what they’re going to use as weapons and how they are going to reassure their safety.