On Oct. 5 students underwent their first A.L.I.C.E simulation training. A.L.I.C.E. stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate. The procedure was put in place as an active shooter civilian response.

The school’s student resource officer, Tom Cole, helped run the simulations to make sure that students and faculty alike were prepared for any safety breach.The Fenton Police Department, Fenton Fire Department and members of the Michigan State Police were present to make sure everything was executed properly.

“If we’re not prepared for situations like this, we’re setting ourselves up as easy targets,” Cole said. “When we say that it will ‘never happen to us,, we let our guard down. That’s why it’s so important to practice these things. It becomes more like second nature to us when we’ve seen it and practiced it before. It allows us to react faster and know what our options are.”

English teacher Brett Mead, who received  A.L.I.C.E. training earlier this year, assisted Cole in the training.

“The world has changed dramatically,” Mead said. “The old procedures were put in place to deal with external threats and we have to realize that the new threat is internal. That’s what A.L.I.C.E. does, it provides us with more options in bad situations.”

Sophomore Lilia Healey was in the cafeteria during the second simulation. She and her friends made the decision to evacuate the building when the “attacker” entered the lunch room from the patio doors.

“The A.L.I.C.E. training really clarified things for a lot of people,” Healey said. “I liked how they put us in a situation where we could experience it for ourselves. That way we could mentally prepare for what we can do if anything actually happens. I definitely think doing something like this again will be very beneficial.”

This simulation will be the first of many the district will organize.

“As long as I’m here we’ll be doing simulations,” Cole said. “The whole school district has invested interest in this type of training. We’ll be adding on to it and making improvements.”

Administrators, teachers and the police force alike want to make sure that everyone is as prepared as possible if a situation were to occur.

“More practice is needed,” Mead said. “I think the training elicited conversation. The right questions were being asked by the student body and the faculty as a whole. We’re just going to keep getting better as we go. Practice makes perfect and that is what we’re doing here with these scenarios.”