MCHS Addresses School Safety

With recent tragedies and a social media threat of its own, there has been some concern and questions among students and parents as to how MCHS is handling the heavy news. With some debate over what exactly constitutes a school shooting raging in the public and with school safety being a very prominent issue in the nation and the community, right now is a stellar time to review how our school practices school safety and explore new opportunities to make students aware of our school safety plan.

Surprisingly, some students at Madison Consolidated High School claim to be unaware of the school safety plan.

Student Autumn Hedgepeth stated, “No, personally I don’t know what our school safety plan is. However, I know most teachers would put their lives at risk to make sure we’re safe.”   

Student Zoe Ehlers said, “I feel like our school is so uncoordinated that we would be at risk and we need to have better safety features in our school.” While Hedgepeth and Ehlers claim to be unaware of the school safety plan, this might be a sound strategy.

Since 2016, 90% of school shootings have been performed by students. If the students know the school safety plan, then there is a high risk factor of greater injury due to the attacker being aware of the safety plan.

The teachers and staff at Madison Consolidated are very aware of the school safety plan and are required to attend multiple meetings throughout the year to ensure the safety of the students and themselves. In the case of a school shooting, the teachers know the plan so the students don’t have to.

For new teachers such as Band Director Sam Bortka, the safety plan has not been as prominent to their initiation into Madison Consolidated.

“What is the A.L.I.C.E program?” Bortka asked.

Although many believe Madison Consolidated is doing an excellent job at keeping the students safe in case of emergency, there is always room for improvement. Students use many doors to let their friends in from the outside rather than the main entrance. Also there are many parents and volunteers with access to keys.

“Our school is not secure,” Bortka said. “I wish they would lock the building, it makes me nervous.”

Even before the tragedy in Florida, there was a great deal of concern about the safety of students amongst faculty and staff.

MCHS Assistant Principal Jill Deputy stated, “It’s concerning, but there have been things that happen that don’t get the media’s attention necessarily. So with the one being so close to home (referring to the shooting at Marshall County High School shooting in Kentucky), I think it definitely sparked some ‘it can happen to us‘ feelings.”

Recently concern has increased as to how to prevent this from happening at Madison Consolidated Schools. In Indiana there is an alert sent across the state throughout various communities whenever tragedy strikes anywhere in Indiana and lately students and staff are becoming more familiar with the MCHS safety plan.

MCHS practices the A.L.I.C.E safety program. An acronym, A.L.I.C.E  means to Alert, meaning be aware of a gunshot or an announcement over the intercom. Lockdown or barricading classroom doors, Inform others of shooter’s location. Counter as a last resort by making noise, throwing objects and exiting the area, and evacuate if at all possible. MCHS Resource Officer Jacob McVey has been trained in the A.L.I.C.E program and has attended extensive program meetings in various locations to ensure we are up to date with our school safety plan.

“In these events the national average time (of the shootings) is about five minutes. So, it’s a very short time period and the people who are doing this sort of thing, evil people, are just trying to kill as many people as possible,” McVey said.

In the event of a school shooting, there are two methods to a lockdown. The traditional route meaning locking doors, turning lights off, and hiding in various concealing places around a classroom. There is also a second philosophy called the proactive method; this is where the A.L.I.C.E program comes to play. The proactive lockdown involves alerting the school, barricading doors, informing others in the school, countering, and evacuation.

McVey stated, “(With) the Virginia Tech shooting, in the traditional lockdown, there were 28 killed, while with the proactive method, only two were killed. As you can see numbers speak for themselves.”

In the next year there are many plans to improve our school safety plan.

“Schools are designed to be a safe learning environment. With this being said, implementing A.L.I.C.E. is increasing the safety in our schools by giving employees more options to keep staff and students safe vs the traditional lock-down method,” McVey said.

Unfortunately for educators, school shooting safety is a very real concern in today’s school climate. Teachers now have to constantly play out hypothetical experiences.

“If there were to be a school shooting, I would tell all my students to grab their laptops and hide in the expedition room (a small room in the SELECT learning room). If an intruder were to come in we would all throw our laptops at the same time,” said MCHS teacher Ronnie Lawhead.

MCHS teacher Phil Whelan added, “School shootings are scary and I hope people open their eyes. A lot of times people in small towns, they think it can’t happen here and then that’s when it happens.” Also, Whelan appeared to be very aware of the safety plan and confirmed that all teachers are required to know the school safety plan.

For parents this can be a hard subject to even fathom. However, the procedures for parents to follow are also very important. It is recommended that parents refrain from contacting their student in the middle of a crisis or lockdown as difficult as that might be.

“A lot of parents want to call in and try to find out what is happening immediately, but really the best thing to do, although it’s hard, is to is just sit and wait until the school informs you. If something is happening, it isn’t in the school’s best interest to be answering phone calls, text messages, or emails.”

Today, MCHS Principal Michael Gasaway implemented a new directive for  Ivy Tech students and Southeastern Career students, students who enter and leave school in the middle of the school day, to use only the main entry door for entering the building and getting on the SEC bus.