1. ALICE Safety Drills: Alexandria City Public Schools, along with community partners including the Alexandria Police Department, have implemented significant changes to our practiced response to physical threats within a school building. The ACPS team developed, educated, and trained staff and students, in an age-appropriate fashion on how to respond and prepare for the unlikely occurrence of an active shooter or active threat at school. Please know that we are considering developmental appropriateness and levels of learning abilities as lessons are being rolled out over the week of the 17th of October.
The active shooter/threat strategies come from a program called Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate, commonly referred to as ALICE. This process provides appropriate action steps for students and staff to take to stay safe in the event of an active shooter or active threat in the school building or on campus. The main objective of this program is to provide students and staff with OPTIONS to increase their chance of survival during an active shooter or active threat emergency. Over the week of October 17th, students will receive lessons in the major components of ALICE taught by their classroom advisory teachers in coordination with the school administrative team. The plan is to complete the mandatory lessons, leave time and space for questions and answers, engage in a barricade drill, followed by an evacuation drill, in which we will walk to our off-site location, Jefferson Houston.
Please know that after each lesson your child may have questions about the strategies covered and we are committed to ensuring they are comfortable with this safety information. Your child will be reminded that they are in a safe school. Real understanding leads to confidence and confidence leads to safe practice drills. If questions arise at home, we can also provide information to you that will help you discuss this important safety topic with your child. It is our hope that you can assist us in not only helping our students solidify their understanding of the material, but also discuss how the strategies could be used in settings other than school (church, the mall, a grocery store, etc.). Student Support Teams (SST) will be deployed throughout our school during lessons and emergency drills. Encourage your child to speak to you and/or your school counseling teams if they encounter any difficulty with lessons or drills.
Our primary focus for students will be on BARRICADING the room and EVACUATION if there were to be an active shooter or threat inside the building. Students will learn the different exits of the building, how to safely run to our reunification point, and actions they can take to keep our school safer (such as not opening exterior doors to known or unknown adults).
It is my absolute priority to keep the students at George Washington M.S. safe, loved, and happy each day at school. I believe that this training will give us another approach that will support this goal. Just as fire drills become routine after practice, it is my hope that these strategies will become ingrained and accessible to our children for the remainder of their lives. As always, please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions regarding this topic.
2. Parent Teacher Conference Feedback: It remains the mission of George Washington Middle School to ensure that we are providing the best possible service to our stakeholder community. With this spirit in mind, we recently returned to in person parent teacher conferences, a change since the on set of COVID-19, and we seek your feedback, experiences, and preference. Please click here to access a short survey on your experience and preference. Thank you!
3. Fentanyl Awareness Fact Sheets: As we are all aware, the dangers of substance abuse, specifically related to fentanyl, are on all of our minds. The ACPS website now has some resources for staff and parents to learn more about Fentanyl in English, Spanish, Arabic and Amharic. Please visit the ACPS Substance Abuse Prevention and Educational Intervention site for more details.
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