With the 2022-23 school year already underway, local school districts, charter schools as well as the Allegheny Intermediate Unit (AIU) are making final preparations for the arrival of students. One of the many areas of focus locally and across the country is school safety. With the tragedy at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas still fresh in our minds, many schools have continued to teach their students and staff appropriate protocols during an active shooter event.

Schools have looked to programs such as ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate) or the FBI’s Run, Hide, Fight as part of their Emergency Preparedness Plan to prepare staff and students with the hope of increasing the likelihood of survival for each and every member of the school. These programs were implemented across schools nationwide in reaction to the increased school violence such as active shooter events, but they are only part of the measures the AIU is taking to keep our school communities safe. 
In addition to the local and national programs above, the AIU Preschool Early Intervention and School Age Programs provide ongoing staff training in the areas of Comprehensive Crisis Management (CCM), Ukeru, and Nonviolent Crisis Intervention (NCI). These prevention and intervention programs focus on prevention and de-escalation strategies to support individuals who have often experienced trauma, stress and anxiety that could escalate to violence. These programs are developed by local and national experts and have been part of AIU student support services for many years. 

In addition, as an educational community that advocates and advances equitable opportunities for every learner, the AIU continues to focus on providing training programs which implement supportive and preventative strategies with the hope of reaching all our stakeholders, but especially our students and staff before violence occurs. State and national programs such as Pennsylvania’s Safe2Say Something program, the Pennsylvania Department of Education Suicide Prevention resources and School Wide Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports (PBIS) have long been implemented as part of the AIU’s focus on school safety. This summer, a group of AIU educators furthered their focus on identifying and supporting our at-risk students by participating in one of the first PREPaRE Trainings in Western Pennsylvania. PREPaRE, which is a program developed by the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP), was developed by NASP “for schools committed to improving and strengthening their school safety and crisis management plans and emergency response,” and is now part of the vast number of tools the AIU has implemented to support our students and staff.