NEW ULM — The New Ulm School Board discussed changes to lockdown procedures during their study session on Thursday.

School Resource Officer Andy Achman presented the board with information on the current crisis plan and recent changes made. He said the most recent changes were to the naming of their lockdown procedures. What was once called “Lockdown warning” and “Lockdown with intruder” were switched to “Soft Lockdown” and “Hard Lockdown”. Achman said this was done to simplify the messaging and make it easier for students to remember which is which.

“Soft lockdown is for an outside threat,” he said. “Something is going on in the community like someone left the hospital detox. We might not have a threat to someone but we want to take extra precaution for our students and staff. Hard lockdown is the worst-case scenario for if something is going on inside the building, and [we would] follow those procedures. We have our ALICE procedures in place. [This stands for] alert, lockdown, inform, counter, and evacuate. That’s what we are still teaching the staff members. That’s what’s taught to the students with a preference for something going on in the building.”

Achman said there is still work to be done on these terms. The primary example was used for when lockdowns are reported over the intercoms. If a soft or hard lockdown is announced, some students may not catch the first word and only hear lockdown. This creates confusion among students and delays response time.

Board member Amanda Groebner asked Achman what would happen to the other schools if one school is placed on a hard lockdown. Achman said it depends on the proximity of the school in hard lockdown to the others.

“Depending on location and what’s going on [hard lockdown] is a possibility,” he said. “The obvious one is Jefferson and the middle school. We can separate them but they’re probably going to be [hard lockdown]. If something’s going on with the high school I probably would put all the other buildings in a soft lockdown, depending on the threat. If something was going down in the CTE center I probably would put the rest of the district on soft lockdown.”

Board member Melissa Sunderman was concerned about parents in the event of a hard lockdown. Understandably, if a school goes into hard lockdown parents are going to want to go there and find their children. Achman explained what should be done.

“Hard lockdown means law enforcement and all of us are going to the threat,” he said. “We’ll be working with the superintendent and principals to put [relocation information on] Campus Messenger. To members, it will say ‘We’re meeting at Vogel’. Sending everyone the message ‘go to Vogel’ because that’s [where we would be] relocating.

Koster asked if surrounding police forces would be involved in securing blocks around the school in hard lockdown. Achman said in a worst-case scenario during a hard lockdown, police officers from every department within radio range would be coming to the scene to assist.