LIVONIA -- Teachers from across Pointe Coupee parish have been receiving situational awareness training from the Louisiana Center for Safe Schools, a division of GOHSEP, ahead of the new school year.

The Center held a presentation at Livonia High School on August 6, where they talked about violence prevention and situational awareness, teaching the educators how to identify threats and respond to emergencies such as an active shooter or a bomb threat.

"We became a center last January. January of 2024, and we're basically building a school safety framework of best practices and then going and educating all of our school districts on what those practices are," Louisiana Center for Safe Schools' Area Coordinator Sarah Theriot said.

Pointe Coupee Parish School System Superintendent Kim Canezaro says this is to ensure the safety of both students and staff.

"After every school incident around the country, there's new advice that comes out, best practices. I just wanted to make sure that my employees were up to date on the most recent and best practices," Canezaro said.

One of the key concepts the teachers learned about is called the ALICE protocol, which stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuation.

In addition, they learned about the importance of violence prevention. The training emphasized that effective strategies include conflict resolution, introducing programs and policies that address and prevent bullying, and fostering a culture of reporting concerns without fear of reprisal.

Canezaro told WBRZ that they will continue these trainings throughout the year.

"We have professional developments already scheduled in the calendar, and part of that will be continued training. We will actually do role-playing. We have tabletops scheduled next, followed by actual role-playing, active shooter training, and bomb threats. Those sorts of things," Canezaro said.

WBRZ also spoke with Sgt. Perry Lambert of the Pointe Coupee Parish Sheriff's Office who serves as the School Resource Officer for Livonia High School. Lambert talked about some safety measures being taken this year.

"All of our campuses have gone to a single point of entry, which makes our jobs a little easier as school resource officers. We've also done some security assessments throughout the summer, and we've done some safety briefings this week, and we've even been doing some active shooter trainings," Lambert said.

LHS's new principal, Dr. Rosie Courville, said she is looking forward to welcoming back the students on the first day of August 11.

"Even though we have things that we're putting in place to maintain safety, I want us to be able, the students to find joy and belonging on our campus," Courville said.