School districts across our region are switching over to a new safety protocol. It’s one that’s different from years past.

The new training is called “ALICE.” It stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate.

Philipsburg-Osceola school district has trained their teachers and staff to follow the new system guidelines. They’ve also added additional safety measures, like cameras, into the high school.

Like previous protocols, it includes alerting everyone in the school if a “violent intruder” enters, but Superintendent Dr. Gregg Paladina said what happens next is much different.

He said normally, students and teachers were told to remain in the room and quiet, but this new training encourages them to create “chaos” in an effort to distract the intruder and to get out of the building if at all possible. If there is no way out, students should barricade in the room they’re in.

The research at the base of this new training is formed based on previous active shooter cases in schools like Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook.

“We’re not talking about attacking the attacker, we’re talking about making a noise, creating a distraction and creating some chaos in the room to get as many people out of the room as possible,” Paladina said. “It throws whoever the attacker is off. If they’re just sitting there quietly, they become sitting ducks.”

The district will host a meeting to further explain the training and take any questions from parents on Thursday at the high school auditorium. The meeting will begin at 7:00 p.m. Students will begin learning the new protocol in the days after the meeting.