More Training; New Tools to Help KUSD Staff Counter Active Shooters

Kenosha---Starting next fall in public school classrooms, the standard equipment list will include kits designed to help staff ward off attackers.

Kenosha Unified Facilities Director Pat Fennimore, who’s taken the lead in instituting a new security training program in the district called “ALICE”, tells WGTD News that over the summer months “barricade kits” will be assembled. The kits will include rope and hardware to help staff and students keep intruders from entering classrooms.

“ALICE” is an acronym for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate. It's designed to replace the old notion that a school-wide lockdown with no additional options is always the best course of action.

Even without the kits, staff members who’ve received ALICE training this past semester have showed great ingenuity in barricading classroom doors, Fennimore said on a recent edition of Education Matters. Fennimore relayed the story of a science teacher who expressed nervousness before the exercise. In the end, the man and his team came up with a way to successfully block an ALICE trainer from entering his room. 

ALICE has received a very positive response from the staff members who underwent the training this semester, Fennimore said. The final school training session occurred Friday. 

Bullen Middle School special education teacher Leigh-Anne Peper said the training got her thinking immediately about ways to protect herself and her students as she moves between various classrooms during the school day. "Since the training, I know what I would do in each and every classroom," she said. "That was the first thing I did Monday morning when I walked back in after training."

Over the summer months, curriculum writers will develop age-appropriate ALICE lessons for students that'll be taught beginning in the next school year. 

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