Upper Perk, like every district in the nation, has spent a lot of time examining school safety and security over the last several years, and the district has made investments to help ensure a secure, nurturing learning environment.

As part of these ongoing discussions, during the 2017-2018 school year, the district held a number of events on school safety and security. These included a March 19, 2018 safety forum hosted with community partners and Informational Parent Meetings on ALICE Active Shooter Training.

The district also rolled-out ALICE to all staff over the course of a year, and progressed to the parent training in April 2018. Students were introduced to the ALICE training in an age-appropriate manner in May 2018. Throughout May, principals at each of the buildings met with groups of students to deliver information about ALICE. At the elementary level, the principals read a book to small groups of students to relay the information. At the secondary level, grade-level meetings were held to discuss ALICE.

During the 2018-2019 school year, training continued, with one ALICE-related drill held per semester at each building. New staff training completed throughout the year, and ALICE was reintroduced to students. During the 2019-2020 school year, each building will conduct two ALICE drills.

ALICE (which stands for alert, lockdown, inform, counter, evacuate), is a training method that teaches techniques that can reduce injuries and casualties in the event of an active shooter. ALICE differs from the lockdown/shelter-in-place approach previously used by many districts, including UPSD. ALICE has been incorporated into our district multihazard emergency operations plan. While Upper Perk was one of the early adopters of ALICE in Montgomery County schools, it is now the method of training and response for all schools in the county.

ALICE empowers staff and students to make informed decisions about how to best ensure their own safety during an active shooter event, especially before authorities arrive on the scene or when they are not immediately available. More on ALICE can be found at ALICEtraining.com.

UPSD places the highest priority on keeping our students and staff safe. While we hope that our community never has to utilize this training, it is important for for us to be prepared should an unspeakable event, such as the shooting in Florida, take place in one of our schools.

Below you will find additional resources on ALICE, including a slideshow and video. Please note that these resources contain serious, and at times, graphic material related to school shootings.