Central Coast school district practicing new active shooter plan

The tragedy in Florida is obviously something we hope to never see anywhere including here on the Central Coast.

But local school districts say there are plans in place, one district we spoke with has already been at work training staff on an all-new plan to protect students and staff should something like it happen.

The Alisal Union School District says it’s always had a plan for an active shooting.

Right now though, the district is in the process of implementing a new plan they say takes a new approach to protecting schools.

“They’re plans that we practice so we do practice lock down drills, as well as fire drills and earthquake drills,” said George Anzo, Director of Maintenance, Operations, Transportation, Safety and Security.

The district is also studying a new kind of drill called ALICE, it stands for alert, lockdown, inform, counter and evacuate.

“It’s a different way of looking at how to handle security situations,” Anzo said.

He says the program gets rid of things like code words and gets right to the action.

“Now they’re telling you to say exactly what’s going on, ‘Intruder on campus!’ and they don’t care if the intruder hears it, they want him to hear it,” Anzo said.

Though the district hopes to have the training complete this year, they say being prepared is a constantly evolving effort.

“We are always looking for new programs, new training that we can follow and share with our staff and hopefully it just makes us a little more prepared,” Anzo said.

To find out more about the ALICE training institute click here.