11/18 - Planned ALICE Drill | Bedford Public Schools

Dear BHS Families,

A fundamental responsibility of Bedford High School is to ensure the safety and well-being of all in our school. For many years, we have employed the ALICE protocol to train our faculty, staff, and students on the most effective ways to respond in the event of a potentially harmful intruder. It is again time to refresh this training with our school community, which we will accomplish with faculty and staff on Tuesday, November 8 as part of our professional day and on Friday, November 18 with the whole school.

ALICE, which may be familiar to many of you, was adopted by Bedford Public Schools several years ago. This is what we will simulate next week during an exercise that will help us to:

Understand how we should respond if there is a potentially harmful intruder on-campus;
Rehearse responses to circumstances presented to us during the exercise; and
Evaluate how well we responded and if there are areas for improvement or lingering questions.

Details about the ALICE protocol are available on our district website. Most important to know, however, is that ALICE response strategies are comprised of two distinct areas of focus:

Awareness and Communication Strategies, which includes being aware of your current situation (or what is going on around you), being alert to signs of potential danger, and staying informed about what is transpiring so that you can make effective decisions.
Response Strategies, which includes evacuation (if this is considered safe to do so) and lockdown (when evacuation is not possible or ideal).

Bedford Public Schools in collaboration with the Bedford Police Department strongly believe that participating in exercises that review and simulate this subject matter and increase familiarity with the range of responses during an emergency best prepare us for a scenario that we hope will never transpire. Peer-reviewed research highlighted by the ALICE team also suggests that ALICE strategies are able to reduce anxiety and build confidence in individuals who have gone through the ALICE program.

Preparing for the Drill

There are a number of ways that we are preparing our community for this important drill.

Faculty, staff, and students have been briefed on our ALICE protocols at the beginning of year meetings.

Faculty and staff will participate in a drill without students on November 8, 2022.

There will be a whole school drill on November 18, 2022 in collaboration with the Bedford Police Department.

A debriefing session will follow both the faculty and whole school drills.

Please note that our counseling and main office team will be available should students, faculty and/or staff require further support.

We encourage parents/guardians to check in with their students before (and certainly after) the drill, as you deem appropriate. We will make every effort to ensure that the simulation is carried out in ways that foster a sense of safety, while allowing them to learn proper responses.

Thank you for your attention to this and, as always, for your partnership.

Sincerely,

Heather Galante (Principal), Tom Casey & Dan Hudder (Assistant Principals) and Justin Brooks (School Resource Officer)