When emergency strikes in a school, resource officers are stationed in a position to save lives – but you need a head on your shoulders to stay calm in a tough situation.
That's why Rapid City-area law enforcement agencies held ALICE training this week. ALICE stands for alert, lockdown, inform, counter and evacuate.
The back-to-school training session for was held at Western Dakota Tech.
While mainly focused on school settings, Pennington County Sheriff’s Office Sargent Jesse Fagerland said other groups got involved in the training.
“Mostly school resource officers from around the area, not just South Dakota, but surrounding states as well," Fagerland said. "We also have school administrators, but we also have folks from private businesses as well who are going to go back and train their businesses.”
Fagerland oversees the areas SROs and said this kind of scenario-based training gets participants in the right headspace for action.
“We’re only using NERF guns, but at the same time it’s invoking a very real response to a critical situation such as an active shooter situation," Fagerland said. "It’s getting us in the mindset of what it’s like to be on the receiving end.”
There is another side to these trainings, though – students. After decades of gun violence, shooting drills, and bulletproof backpacks, every student in America is keenly aware of the potential for violence in their school.
Douglas Middle School dean Nathan Batteen said you can’t be a kid without being introduced to something like ALICE these days.
“Unfortunately, it’s something we have to think about in schools – most kids that have grow up these days have been through some sort of ALICE training," Batteen said. "Today were here with law enforcement to look at ALICE from the lens of how to go back and train our staff. The valuable piece is – how do we set up this training so that it’s trauma-informed and also safe.”
According to the ALICE website, nearly 6,500 schools nationwide have participated in ALICE training.