By Megan Sassaman, Journalism 1 / Edited by Lynn Dang, Section Editor

As the lockdown announcement buzzed over the speaker, indecisiveness arose in the classrooms.

That indecisiveness is due to the new program for lockdowns that will be used in the 2015/2016 school year. In spring 2015, staff of Hershey High School received training for the new lockdown program called ALICE, standing for alert, lockdown, inform, counter, and evacuate. Differing from the previous HHS lockdown plan, ALICE has a three step plan. The school still has yet to run the drill for ALICE.

According to shootingtracker.com, in the United States there have been 371 mass shootings in 2015, 336 mass shootings in 2014, and 364 mass shootings in 2013.

Since 2013 there have been at least 160 school shootings in America, averaging about one per week according to everytownreasearch.org. Though known as “The Sweetest Place On Earth,” Hershey is not exempt from a mass shooting occurring.

In an informal survey of 34 HHS students, 79.4% of students said that HHS is safe and 17.6% said only sometimes the school is safe.

Dale Reimann, HHS principal, believes the safety of students are the school’s highest priority, “First, the important thing is that everyone is safe,” he said.

Officer Mary Kepple, Derry Township Police Officer, also said the priority is safety and the assurance of safety. In order to keep safety a priority, HHS has many ways to maintain this safety in the school.

According to Kepple, one way of ensuring safety is by sending daily attendance to the main office by 7:50am.

Also during the morning, the only unlocked doors are the main office doors and the back doors by the cardio room and the weight room. The doors later lock once the morning bell rings at 7:38am. In order to gain access to the building, you must buzz in to the main office.

Once access is granted, a visitor badge is required unless you are a student. The front office checks for a driver’s license which is swiped, and a background check is done to see if the person is a threat to the school.

Through the duration of the day HHS English teacher Derek Dietz is assigned hall duty while he is not teaching. During hall duty, he roams the halls to ensure safety.

Another way to maintain safety in HHS are that annual canine lockdowns, which are run for drug search. Police such as Officer Kepple run and organize the drill

To ensure safety throughout the building during the 2015/2016 school year, two or three lockdown drills will be run utilizing this plan. It was a plan created after the school shooting at Virginia Tech.

During Virginia Tech’s shooting, it was shown that there are multiple things to do to stay safe and to improve campus safety. ALICE was then created and consists of a three step plan: run, hide, or fight. This program was introduced to the majority of students by assistant principals, and is being used instead of the prior plan.

According to Dietz, the prior plan consisted of hiding in the corner of a room. “There wasn’t anything else to do,” he said. With the old plan, the only option was to hide.

Students are still awaiting their first drill with the new program; however, teachers received training in the spring of 2015. Substitutes were not trained, but there are handbooks in every classroom on what to do in an emergency situation. In an instance of an emergency, teachers nearby are supposed to help substitutes with drills and incidents.

With the expanded options in the ALICE program, students can choose what they think is best action to take. According to an informal survey of thirty-four students at HHS, 14.7% of students said they would hide, 14.7% said they would fight and 70.6% said they would run.

“If kids run, it’s going to be pretty chaotic,” said Reimann.

With the choice of students running in a situation of emergency, concerns arose that chaos could be a potential issue due to the uncertainty of not knowing where all the students are. Attendance of students also was a concern to Reimann.

Reimann said, “If we had a situation that severe, I think clearing the building of all students and neutralizing the threat would be step one, attendance would be a little lower on the list. I don’t want anyone staying here if it isn’t safe to be here.”

Although ALICE lets students decide what to do in the event of a shooting, some students believe the program has some flaws. Emily Briselli, junior at HHS suggested, “While I like that ALICE kind of allows students to do whatever seems smartest and safest, it does raise the concern of chaos breaking out. If everyone can do whatever they think is best, it could become hectic and chaotic if an emergency situation were to arise. It might be better if the administration gives a stricter plan of action to follow first, then tells students to do what is safest and smartest if the first plan does not work.”

Similarly to Briselli, HHS junior Samina Singh said, “Maybe have a more solidified plan – it kind of seems like they told us to just ‘figure it out in the moment’ which is scary because I have no idea what to do in that situation.”

Students feel as though ALICE is a well-made program; however confusion arose when it was brought up that you have to make your own decision. Students did not receive enough clarification about whether administration will tell students what to do or if every student will decide which to do.

With the growing need for ALICE drills due to the rise in the number of mass shootings in recent years, Dietz said, “We need a plan for it in case [a mass shooting] happens.”