A.L.I.C.E. training needs to be taken seriously.

With the recent shooting at the Waffle House in Tennessee and the daily acts of violence in this country I think it’s important to discuss our safety in this school.

I’m not going to talk about my personal opinion on gun laws or even guns in general because that isn’t going to get us anywhere. I do think it is important however to ask, why the teachers don’t take the A.L.I.C.E. training more seriously?

I’m not talking about all teachers, obviously, but just the handful that see the A.L.I.C.E. training as a burden, as if talking about our safety in a dangerous situation is somehow less of a priority than a test or lesson on something we won’t even remember in 20 years.

I’ve been in so many situations, even just this year, where we are supposed to talk about what we would do in case of an active shooter, but the teacher either beats around the bush because they don’t want to talk about something like that happening here, or they just don’t talk about it at all. And I know there are plenty of other students who would say the same thing.

I can count multiple classes that I’ve had throughout high school where we have 100% never talked about what we would do in the case of an active shooter, nor has A.L.I.C.E. even been mentioned.

Yes, it is impossible to be 100% prepared for every situation that can arise, but that’s why we talk about it. The goal of continuously talking about these types of situations is that is something bad eventually happens hopefully your brain will be able to rely on that information you were told time and time again. If that information is never presented to you, that significantly decreases your chances of knowing what to do and being able to make smart and safe decisions.

It’s not just the handful of teachers at our school either, even the state of Ohio doesn’t take active shooting drills as serious as they should.

Do you know how many deadly school fires there have been since the 1990’s?

Zero.

Do you know how many deadly school shootings there have been since the 1990’s?

Fifty, with a total death count of 141 people.

So tell me why, by law, the school is required to do TEN fire drills each school year, yet is only required to do THREE “school safety drills”. Out of these “school safety drills” only one has to be an actual lockdown drill in response to a violent act, the other two can be rapid dismissals or lockdown drills.

Yes, the state of Ohio needs to increase the required amount of active shooter drills, but we as a school need to start taking the A.L.I.C.E. training offered to us more seriously. It is going to take a lot to make the world into a better place where we don’t have to worry about kids getting killed at school, but until then it takes very little effort to just follow the instructions given to you by your bosses. Sorry but missed class time isn’t more important than my life or any of the other lives in this building.