Anchorage schools will have new safety protocols for classrooms this year. Instead of commonly used “lockdowns," the district is adopting new language and procedures from the “I love u guys” foundation’s standard response protocols.
Schools will have five designations for classrooms during emergencies; hold, secure, lockdown, evacuate, and shelter in place. In the event of a school shooting, the program includes a reunification platform to alert parents where they can pick up their child and confirm with school staff who is supposed to get them.
Jared Woody, Senior Director of Emergency Management with the district, said the main difference between the old and the new protocols is more specific language.
“Lockdown was a word that we know out in public is a source of panic for parents, for folks in general, and we were using it perhaps a little bit incorrectly for the common understanding. So we're eliminating that problem,” Woody said.
Woody said the district had an instructor provide training in June, and another will train more staff later this month.
Schools in Craig, Cordova, and on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta have already adopted the same protocols, along with police departments in Craig and Cordova. The last school shooting in Alaska was in Bethel in 1997 when a 16-year-old student killed two people and injured two others.
Parents who lost their daughter in a school shooting started the foundation in 2006, and the name “I love you guys” comes from their daughter’s last text messages to her parents. The foundation provides training and messaging protocols at no cost, and has been implemented by over 50,000 schools and organizations nationwide.
The district encourages parents to make sure their contact information is up-to-date on ASDConnect before the school year starts on Aug. 14.
In the 2023-2024 school year, the Anchorage School District suspended 69 students for weapons. Data from last school year is not currently available.
The Anchorage Assembly considered a measure early this year that would have brought misdemeanor charges on parents or guardians of students who brought guns to school, but the ordinance was postponed indefinitely in April. So far this year, the United States has seen 33 school shootings, down from 83 in 2024.
