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Introduction: Active Shooter Events continue to be a rising public health concern in the United States within communities as well as schools. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, between the years 2000 and 2013 there was an average of 11.4 active shooter incidents occurring annually with a drastic increase between 2007 and 20139. While the incidents of mass murder are increasing, so too are the fatalities from a firearm with 7 in the year 2000 and 90 in 20129. Incidents of mass murder have been particularly problematic with a total of 138 mass shooting events occurring in the first 5 months of 201712. While some of the active shooting incidents are targeted at a particular group and most often relate to gang activity or personal feuds, the shootings that have occurred in a school are more commonly referred to as “school rampage shootings”13. These rampages target mass murder and the choices of victims are relatively indiscriminate and often are done for the reason of political or institutional ideals13. Purpose: The Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate (ALICE) training program is an active shooter preparedness training that encompasses options-based, proactive, survival strategies in the event of an active shooter. ALICE is meant to decrease the number of casualties in an active shooter event. ALICE is a technique that teaches students, teachers and administrators to have an active approach during an incident. The overall purpose of this study was to assess public high school principals’ who had been ALICE Trained, perceptions of the effectiveness of ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate) training, their self-efficacy in using ALICE training to handle an active shooter situation, and the benefits and barriers that school administrators may experience when trying to implement an ALICE training service in the public high schools. Methods: An electronic survey was administered to 180 principals who had been ALICE Trained in the past 3 years. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, T-test, Pearson Correlation, Analysis of variance tests, multiple logistic regression and a Principal Components analysis. Results: The results of this study concluded that principals perceived ALICE training to be an effective training in schools. They also felt confident in completing the trained steps in the event of an active shooter and perceived it to limit casualty. The principals had strongly agreed on multiple benefits that ALICE training contributed to and only a few principals listed cost and time as a barrier. Conclusions: ALICE training can be viewed as an effective training for public high schools according to trained principals. |
