A teacher submitted this comment but I felt it deserved it's own posting. It is in response to this post.
A few years ago, our campus had an armed intruder drill. We all thought it was wonderful--but we have been severely chastised for it since then.During the August in-service days, all of the teachers were working in their rooms. I was sitting at my desk, with my back to the open door. I heard a noise, but had no clue what it was. I thought someone knocked over a ladder. The teacher in the adjoining room came running to the connecting doors bug-eyed. He asked what the noise was. I told him I had no clue. Before I could finish my sentence, he was running into his room. I went after him. As I did, an announcement ("There is a man in the building with a friend."--Yes, that was our "code" for an armed intruder!) came over the PA. I took my keys to the door to lock it and turn off the lights. When I got to the doorway, a man with a shotgun was about 3 feet from my door. I slammed the door and lunged behind the desk. After a few minutes, the other teacher came to the door, and we watched a team of police officers walk past my door with guns drawn. We went to his classroom at that point. We heard some popping sounds and sat quietly for what seemed like forever. We finally heard keys in the door and sat quietly. We heard a person say "Police, anyone in here?" We still didn't speak. They asked again while shining their flashlights into the room. Finally, we figured it was really the police and commented. They told us it was a drill, but they wanted us to still follow the procedure of running with our hands on our heads while bent over. After everyone was "found", we convened in the cafeteria for a debriefing. At that point, we found out how "stupid" some teachers are. (Sorry, there isn't a better way to phrase that!) See, the armed man--a police officer--came to a back door and knocked. One of the teachers let him in--no questions asked. After seeing the rifle, another teacher approached him and asked if the gun was real. He proceeded to fire a shot or two into the ceiling--blanks. According to the accounts, the armed gunman was in our building almost 8 minutes before anyone was notified. Our administration worked directly with the local police department--training for all of us. (This wasn't the first cooperative effort.) They kept the "people-in-the-know" to the 3 principals, 1 secretary, and 2 teachers. One of the teachers had a history of heart problems, and the other was 8 months pregnant. Everyone wanted to see exactly how people react in a situation.From all of the training I have received since then, I have been told everyone needs to know when a drill happens. This is for the emotional awareness of everyone involved. If a fire alarm goes off, people tend to think "this is a drill" and don't take it seriously. If they know ahead of time that there is a drill, they will know it is the real deal if an alarm goes off with no prior warning.
*PLEASE NOTE: This drill was done in 2001. So many things have changed since then.
1 comment:
After reading some other comments, I felt I needed to clarify some of the information.
This drill took place in August, 2001--just a few short weeks before terrorists attacked our country. The drill was initially set up by our police department as a part of their SWAT training. Our PD worked with our campus on other SWAT drills previously. At the time, this drill was "cutting-edge" and exposed us all to what could happen. It also gave our PD an idea of what it was doing wrong. After the terrorist attacks, our district received federal funding for crisis training. I was/am a member of the team that was trained. At that point, everyone was in agreement that several aspects of our drill should have been handled differently. Afterall, hindsight is 20/20.
I hope this clarifies that our administration was not being reckless when they made the decision to participate in this drill. They thought they were being progressive at proactive.
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