Schools

Canton Schools Continue Lockdown Discussions

Police and School officials are eyeing a program known as ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate) to help keep students safe.

School officials in Canton this week continued talks around a new "lockdown" initaitive. 

The Canton School Committee met on Tuesday, Jan. 8 to continue discussion on proposed enhancements to the district's lockdown protocols. Initial discussion began on Dec. 6, and have included presentations from Canton Police Chief Kenneth Berkowitz and Detective Charles Yeaton. The program is referred to "alert, lockdown, inform, counter, evacuate" (ALICE).

The relevance of the initiative, however, became more relevant after the school shooting in Newtown in late December. 

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Proponents of the new approach say there have been too many attacks for students not to be trained in how to more actively defend themselves.

Canton Superintendent Jeff Granatino said the focus of the program would be on supplying real-time information to students and staff, identifying safe places to hide, and evacuation, and that counter-attacks are a last resort, according to WCVB.

Find out what's happening in Cantonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Berkowitz, meanwhile, said that Canton police protocols already account for the “alert” and “lockdown” portions of ALICE, but that the rest of the program represented a more active response by schools, according to Boston.com.


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