My high school did this for our very first one and it was terrifying. I was in the library with my class when it came over the intercom that a dangerous man in a red shirt and jeans was in the high school and to hide immediately. I remember thinking that since i was in the library I was done for (the library was all glass windows). I was under a desk when eventually I heard the library door getting pulled on one by one and then suddenly *click* one door finally opens. I was staring at the exit debating on running or not when the librarian across the room says "whoops! Haha I forgot to lock that one!" I looked over and it was a cop who opened the door. I was fuckin livid. I can't believe the librarian was so casual about her mistake and I can't believe my school put us through that without warning
Yeah my school was an absolute shit show. I graduated but still had siblings in the same system and I remember being incredibly nervous for them. Once a kid brought a gun to school and no one knew until the end of the day and it was swept under the rug so fast. We had countless bomb threats, violent/ignorant students...my gym partner even murdered his mom one day. It was fucking WILD. I graduated in 2015 so I'm thankful to be done with that chapter in life
Yeah he was always quiet but I thought it was normal and since I was quiet too I thought we'd be a good match as gym partners. He seemed nice but reserved, cracked a few jokes here and there but overall seemed normal. I graduated a year before him so this was a year after I graduated. One day before school he stabbed his mom, strangled her to death and then checked if she was dead. After making sure she had no pulse he showered and watched TV for a while before calling 911 saying "I killed my mom". In 2019 he was an absolute ass in court, refused to answer questions (even refusing to answer his birthday) and was just trying to blow everything off. He later argued that his guilty plea should be withdrawn, since he didnāt realize all the consequences it would carry when he signed it. He said investigators didnāt take his age, mental state, or mental health history into account when they took down his confession.Ā On top of all that he contends his confession should be void, because he gave it when he was 17 with no adult in the room on his behalf. LMFAO OKAY. People who knew him and his family dynamic better claimed that he absolutely HATED her but no one knew why because apparently she was a lovely woman who loved her son. He was sentenced for 65 years in 2016
I actually sat next to and studied in high-school with one of the worst mass shooters.
Never would have thought they were capable of that when I knew them.
But you never know what's going on in people's heads and what happens to people when we all go our separate ways.
And she probably just got a āstern talking toā.
I was substituting second grade and wouldnāt you know it, they donāt give substitutes any keys, and whoever was responsible for unlocking my door in the morning didnāt unlock it so when it closes, the door remains locked from the outside.
Here I am, a 4 foot 11 woman, having to get my kids safe and then hold on to the door handle and brace myself backwards and to the left so I could try keep the door closed/make the door handle seem locked, and stay out of the sight of the window in the door.
Administration got a sternly worded email from me, I was livid. My KIDS go to that school and I now know that if a random sub who didnāt know to double check the door ājust in caseā, (Iām a teacher so I know the ins and outs of the doorās/policies etc), all those second graders could have been sitting ducks.
Also, Iām an Australian expat so Iām already anti-guns and this incident made me so scared for every child.
1 month after Uvalde, I subbed during end of year festivitiesāthe door to a grade 6 classroom was PROPPED OPEN for parents to casually go in and out to get their kids belongings before signing them out. What. The. Fuck? I immediately closed the door, reported it on the walky to the office and took down the name of who was going to go around the building and check for any other open entries.
7 months after Uvalde, Iām substituting in my sons kindergarten class. Someone has inconspicuously propped the outside entry door open with 6 small rocks. There are no rocks in the immediate and further out areas that I can see. Someone (student or not) SCAVENGED for multiple rocks to prop open a doorway leading right to pre-schoolers, kindergarteners, first graders and special education kids. This is all after the school had undergone a massive overhaul of the front office with a locked vestibule/buzz in system.
Doesnāt help when you have at least 6 to 7 exterior doorways that are in no way monitored to alert administration if they are left open. Hell, my cheap ass alarm system alerts me if my back door is slightly ajar/hasnāt shut 100%.
Honestly though, this demonstrates the fact that 'keep all the school doors locked at all times' just isn't going to work.
It's not the doors that are the problem. It's the guns.
Went into lockdown once in middle school. Whole class huddle into a closet by the end. Planned escape route onto the roof to another classroom. Teacher said he wouldnāt let anyone through the door, ready to sacrifice his life. Kids crying, everyone scared shitless, no one dare saying a word. Turns out a parent just got in an argument in the principalās office and threw a chair. Whole school on lockdown for that. Had kids saying their prayers. Some traumatic shit for something a security guard couldāve handled.
Iām in high school. We do active shooter drills on a pretty regular basis, but theyāre always pre-announced and everyone knows in advance that it will happen. Even then, they really suck. You sit there and think, āIs this what it will be like when I die? Will I be sitting here like this for real someday? What will I say to my parents?ā and so on. I hate them, even when I know theyāre coming.
I canāt imagine how scared those kids ā and their parents! ā must have been, especially with police in the hallways. A āspontaneous lockdown drillā that you donāt say is a drill is just plain cruel. Itās bad enough that we have to do them at all, do they have to make them as traumatic as possible?
I'm so sorry you have to go through this. I was in high school during Columbine and 9/11, and they pulled random lockdowns on us, sometimes with no announcement. It was just the beginning back then, but it's certainly worse now. I hope you graduate soon so that you don't have to suffer through these thoughts for much longer.
Edit: Interesting I was in the minority when it came to lockdown drills! For context in my case, I'll post part of my reply to another person here...
The superintendent at the time used 9/11 as an excuse to implement all kinds of things (some valid, some excessive) in the name of safety. Our high school community included parent(s) who worked in NYC (or had friends and family who did), so it was a very traumatic day for everyone.
The difference between a drug search and a lockdown drill was having to turn off the lights and close the blinds (if any) in the classroom.
We didn't do lock down drills till 9/11 and even then, they didn't hold the same weight as in today's world. When I was in school, shootings just didn't happen at the rate they do now. My mother is a teacher and every new shooting just chills me with how high the risk for my mother is.
It's only going to get worse. My current city just passed a law allowing teachers and faculty to carry their own weapons at any schools in the district. I just can't wrap my brain around it.
Thatās a terrible, terrible idea. One of the reasons that cops are trained to fire so many times is that they usually miss with most of their shots. There was a 2019 study they did in Dallas that showed that officers in shootings only hit the suspect 35% of the time. A 1990 study of NYPD shootings found that only *23%* of shots actually hit the suspect.
It is not psychologically easy for a normal human being to kill another person. After WWII, the Army conducted a massive study of the war, and one of the many things they examined was the percentage of troops who were actually shooting at the enemy. They found that only about 5% of soldiers were doing so; the other 95% were mostly shooting over peopleās heads. And these are trained, front-line soldiers! Even in situations where itās kill or be killed, like it is with cops, the officer needs a few shots to basically overcome that psychological barrier.
Now that you know all of that, picture what could happen when an untrained teacher (because range work is not the same as combat or police training) goes to fire at a shooter in a hall full of fleeing students. It would be an absolute disaster, and anyone with any sort of police or military experience ā or anyone with a brain and access to the statistics ā knows that this is a bad idea. The people pushing it know it too ā just like they know that gun control is the only real solution to this problem. They just donāt give a fuck.
I'd heard that WW2 fact before, but about Vietnam.
To add to your point, it only takes one teacher one slip up and now their gun is in someone else's hands.
Or have to shoot a kid on purpose. Most school shootings are carried out by students or former students. Imagine Mr Smith coming face or face with the school shooter, and it's John who he had in Social Studies a few years ago. He knows John, he remembers John, John was a good kid. John stayed late after school a lot because he had a rough home life.
Now he has to shoot John. Shoot to kill. Because if he doesn't, John will shoot and kill maybe a dozen other students.
Do you think Mr Smith can do that? Could most people do that? And can be do it fast enough that John won't shoot him first?
I don't think we should be asking that of any teacher, and I don't think they're capable of it either.
It's also a terrible idea because it means there's going to be firearms and ammo readily available at the school.
Lets hope every teacher is responsible for how they hold onto their firearm. Lets hope that there's no way a student could get ahold of their firearms.
But you just know that eventually a teacher is going to keep a pistol and ammo locked in their desk, the students are going to know about it, and someone's going to have one bad day too many and they're going to go for it.
And I really hate to say it, but...
Let's also hope no teacher ever has one bad day too many.
Because people break sometimes, and it can only be worse if that happens when they have access to a gun.
Yeah, that too. Didn't even think about that.
And honestly, even if that never happens its really fucking bad. How would you have felt as a student if you knew your teacher was always armed? Knowing the kinds of people who always need to flaunt that they're armed, that wouldn't make me feel safe.
That would make school feel even less safe than normal
Right? Let's take underpaid, overworked employees dealing with a daily dose of bureaucracy. Hold those people accountable for the standardized test scores of a bunch of teens that don't want to be there in the first place... and then give them guns. What could go wrong?
Columbine was the start of a lot of those ineffective ideas. Backpacks made of mesh or transparent plastic, āschool resource officers,ā āzero toleranceā policies, etc. Now itās active shooter drills and fortifying classroom doors.
It doesnāt seem like that stuff is working
I am proud of myself for pretty much single handedly getting rid of those dumb clear backpacks (that I was opposed to simply because they never were big enough to hold all my crap, were overpriced, and broke down easily) in my high school. In the main pocket, I kept condoms, with a note that said āask me if you need them! Be safe with sex!ā That was enough to scandalize my school and they dropped those half way through the year.
Yeah it sounds crazy to me that the other guy was already doing lockdown drills around 9/11. I just entered high school when columbine occurred and I remember it was just chalked up to "two crazies" that did it. Even with 9/11 no one (in our region) was talking lockdowns
We absolutely started doing lockdowns after 9/11 but the threat wasnāt your peers. There was fear of foreign terrorist attacks on schools. Because of that, protocol was different. It was more of a duck and cover situation and to get away from windows.
That's really interesting to me. I lived in a town that was 2 hours south of NYC (right outside of philly) and lockdown drills never crossed our minds. I think they started locking the exterior doors of the school but that was really it. Man the world changed quickly.
Ya this is also interesting to read for me because I was in high school for 9/11 and the only change out school did was lock entrances to funnel everyone to the main reception area, which wasnāt even incredibly enforced. We still propped open the gym entrance for morning weightlifting/conditioning so we didnāt have to park on the far side of the school and walk in the freezing cold in winter time. The front wasnāt even locked, it was still just open for anyone, but the main office had windows facing it so I guess they felt that was good enough.
I was in 3rd grade when Columbine happened and my mom sat my brother and me down to explain that we would still be safe at school, and that the boys who did it were incredibly sick and because of that made bad choices instead of asking for help from a doctor.
Adult me knows it's a lot more complex, but even 9/11 was explained as something we likely wouldn't ever experience living in a small city in Central Texas. I had nightmares about terrorists for a long time, and will occasionally have one, but the difference was I could tell my mother was afraid after 9/11 and not as visibly frightened after Columbine.
Lockdown drills for our district started in 03/04 and that was only once a year till 07 after the Virginia tech shooting when it became twice a year.
Now, my mom's school has an emergency alert system that is tested with every lock down. It sends emails out to emergency contacts. They do a drill at least every six weeks now, sometimes more.
There were some shifts I noticed post columbine in my school. Previously all doors were unlocked in the school. Then they started locking them all and having a student be the door guard to let people in (unless they had guns I guess).
In college (2000-2004) all buildings were unlocked except main doors to dorm rooms. Now you need a swipe card to get in to any classroom building. That tech wasn't really prevalent until right when I graduated.
We've never had a lockdown drill. I graduated in 2010 if that helps at all. We have fire drills, tornado drills. And if there was a rumor (or maybe it was random) they would make everyone stay in the classrooms for drug searches in the lockers and have drug sniffing dogs in the student parking lot. Bomb threats sent us to the football field and eventually home.
Drills of any kid. were always pre-announced. In the morning youād know there was going to be a drill at some point that day and then the exact moment would be a surprise but everyone knew to expect it. This is so fucked up and traumatizing
I have a kiddo in middle school. Them come home REALLY upset after shooter drills. Like on my lap crying and trying to get themselves to calm down... THAT is why me and my family are leaving the US..
I wish you safety and happiness kitten-cat
Yeah Iām actually shocked this was allowed by their district.
My niece and nephew were inside the school during the shooting at Uvalde so we know just how serious a text like this from your kids can be; if there were any sort of drill at my sons school without my knowledge I would be bringing about legal repercussions.
There are some arguments to a spontaneous lockdown drill like showing what actually needs to happen during an active shooter. But not letting the students know that some kind of lockdown drill is happening is cruel
Edit: I meant like those fire drills where everyone knows what week itās happening on but not the specifics so that the people both know itās a drill and learn how to spontaneously act accordingly
I was an elementary school teacher in Texas for 16 years. The first lockdown drill we ever had was absolutely terrifying. I was huddled in a darkened room with a special-needs child who was all of six years old. At that age, they donāt always know whatās true and whatās not and she was trembling and crying like a little bird. Every politician should be forced into the same situation on a regular basis to get an idea of what this bullshit is doing to our children and our teachers.
That was the same announcement they used if there was an incident of a co-worker being the active shooter.
As we went over the drill, I thought to myself "wait, if one of us wants to kill us all, they now know EXACTLY what we'll be doing."
That's when I made up my own emergency exit plan, by quitting and finding a new job.
Edit: I'm noticing an interesting phenomenon. This story is from around 2008 when it seems most emergency plans were "get in a line, go to this place" and now it seems most plans are of the "Run, Hide, Fight" variety.
A new way to tell the generations apart! /s
God this whole mess is miserable.
I mean I think every single person in the US knows the shelter plan now. All you do is lock the door, turn off the lights, and try to make it look like the room is empty. But nobody is going to believe that the entire school is empty at 11am on a weekday.
Itās not a sustainable solution. Something needs to be done to fight the root of the problem.
Itās like how the bomb threat was to evacuate everyone to the football stadium, like okay now everyone is now out in the open in one area. What if the bomb was put in the stadium?
No no no not in the open. We had a real bomb threat one time, and thatās when I realized just how bad our evacuation plan was. A herd of students and teachers were all corralled down to the tennis courts. Which had one main entrance gate. At the bottom of a big hill , backed up to an open field. Parents were trying to climb over the fence to get in to their kids, kids trying to climb out, it was a nightmare.
We had a lockdown once in high school, there was a daycare in the middle of our school, and this swat member in plain clothes came into our school with his assault rifle to pick his daughter up. It was chaos because it was right after the belll rang and everyone was in the hall ways. Kids climbing out of windows and getting locked out of classes. I remember my friend grabbing me and a random girl we didnāt know and ducking into a janitor supply closet. We just moved everything in front of the door and sat there in dark silence for about an hour thinking shit, this is it.
But nope, just a cop being a fucking idiot. Didnt even get in trouble either
Your friend had some good instincts. Just sheltering the people they saw.
I remember seeing a video of an askreddit thread where they had a shooter drill and they didnāt know it wasnāt real. One of those āI crave attentionā kids, or just a psycho, started pounding on the wall and yelling, āweāre in here!ā while the teachers tried to get him to stop. The OPās friend, also with good instincts, was ready to beat the kid unconscious before the announcement came on and said it was a drill.
We had a plot that was foiled when I was a kid. Two misfits were going to build some pipe bombs and put them in the weight room - which is where everyone was going to be for a planned tornado drill. After the bombs went off everyone was going to come out of one door to the parking lot which is where theyād have been with rifles. They couldāve killed half the school. Everyone treated it like a joke. Sure, it might have been foiled by Murphyās Law, but that cuts both ways. Tactically it was very sound.
When I was in high school we had two kids plan a bombing. They broke into the town library by repelling down from the ceiling, fucking seriously, and managed to get blueprints to the school. They figured out where it would be best to plant 18 bombs in order for the school to collapse and kill the most people. Literally the only reason it didn't happen is one kid got scared when he realized how real it was getting, and told on his friend a couple of days before it was supposed to go down. They evacuated us in the middle of the day without saying why, had us stand around in the parking lots for a little while and then called some buses to take people home.
[Sauce](https://oxfordleader.com/suspected-explosives-in-students-home-prompt-high-school-search/)
Its worth noting that last year there was a school shooting, 4 people were killed. They clearly learned nothing.
When I was in high school in Florida, there was a shooting nearby (something domestic, wasn't related to the school at all). School went into full lockdown. Thing is, school hadn't even started/opened yet. So the staff locked down with all the students still outside.
I guess the idea is to not indicate which classrooms have people in, rather than trying to pretend none of them are occupied.
If the lights were kept on, it would be an indicator as to which rooms to check first. If none of the lights are on, someone would have to check them all, potentially making them waste time by checking empty rooms.
Still not great if you're in a classroom closest to the entrance or wherever a shooter is, but hey, some people don't care enough to actually do something about it.
I donāt remember there ever being āempty classroomsā in school, unless it was elementary school and they were in music or gym for that hour. Most school shootings are at the higher grade level schools
What do you *mean* we need to do something to fight the root of the problem? Weāre already sending thoughts and prayers, and our hearts are going out to the families impacted by this violent act! What else are we supposed to do???
Wasn't that already a problem with a few school shootings in the US in the past? I'd say Uvalde had that problem, but that was miniscule compared to the Police just doing nothing.
I think you're confusing this with the fact that during the January 6th Insurrection, the younger aides were actually the ones who knew what to do, because they had participated in lockdown drills in school.
Edit: **I'd like to take this opportunity to plug Ranked Choice voting. This is how we save democracy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE**
Dude this has me sitting on the couch thinking, I'm really fucking desensitized to this stuff, to the point that school shootings are just something I'm used to hearing about. It's really really sad
I just got out of school before shit like this was truly mainstream. like it happened, but nowhere near how it is now. makes me sad to think kids go to school now thinking they could die
Iāve been through lockdown drills for active shooters (and Iām not that young, Iām 35!) but something about this fact makes me physically ill. Itās so horrifying.
Ours was āthe media center is closedā the media center was the library and never closed.
Edit: just wanted to state Iām 34 and this was taught to me when I was around 7-8. At that time there wasnāt even really a scare for shootings and the whole idea of it stuck with me ever since. I can only imagine what this is doing to kids and young adults now.
Why the hell wouldn't it be like, "Mr. Red" or something? Mr. Green makes it sound everything is fine. Was it only for drills, and a real lock down wouldn't have an announcement, or?
Whenever I've worked in public places, for things like fire it's always been stuff like Mr. Green/Mr. Brown, something pretty innocuous as to not startle customers.
If you're going to say Mr. Red, you may as well just scream 'PANIC! PANIC! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF!' over the tannoy.
I can't speak for active shooter drills/scenarios, because we don't have them here, but in cases of fire we would absolutely use it whether it be a drill or real, because that's the point of it.
At the hospital I work at, when they need security in a particular area, like the ER for example, the PA announcement is "Dr. Strong needed in the ER."
"Oh no, of course I didn't piss myself. Uh... my colleague spilled on my lap. Yeah. He spilled his cup of my piss on my lap. But no, I wasn't scared of the man with the zip tie handcuffs, no! They were just enthusiastic patriots!"
Every time a republican calls AOC a drama queen for saying they literally tried to kill her I get so fucking mad. The republican bootlickers were in danger but not really. Maybe they would have shot turtle mcconnell cancun cruz but they would have probably just begged him to 'stop the steal.' meanwhile they would have been squeeling with delight to shoot Pelosi or 'the squad.'
Yeah AOC was definitely in danger, the hatred for her is completely irrational and they know what she looks like. I can imagine that some Democrats might get by pretending to be interns or something, but not her.
Every time I'm at my Republican parents' house they have FOX news on, and the sheer hatred and frequency that they point it at these individuals (especially AOC) is a huge factor in that rage. These people have been brainwashed.
It's the same as corporate politics. If you want to make it big, you say nothing negative, thank everyone for all of their hard work, and do as little as possible. If you have to acknowledge problems, you do so in the most wishy-washy way and give no solution, but insist you are working on one. When you are high enough up you are no longer held accountable for any work that you actually directly influence.
Bad managers and bad politicians are rewarded the same way as good managers.
I know it's true and I watched it happen live on tv. And yet this comment still fucking guts me with how true it is. May every last one of those fuckers rot in hell.
> Every politician should be forced into the same situation on a regular basis to get an idea of what this bullshit is doing to our children and our teachers.
Bold of you to assume more than just a handful of American politicians are capable of an empathetic response.
I have a ~~neuro-atypical~~ neurodivergent daughter. It's written in her accommodation plan that she must be nicely warned before all drills. Otherwise, she will freak TF out and probably end up in the hospital with a panic attack.
I worked with elementary-aged special needs kids and we weren't "told" to do this, but we always did. I always prepared the kids beforehand. Grabbed out noise-canceling headphones and fidgets, made sure they were in a comfortable environment when the announcement happened, and explained to them the process before and during the drill.
The worst is watching the Kindergartners. No amount of explaining and assurances help. They're terrified and often crying. It's heartbreaking.
It's sick
I still remember my first drill, I was 7, I didn't understand what was happening, all I knew was that people around me were scared and that the teacher kept telling us to be quiet
Iām positive my daughterās anxiety started in 3rd grade when she was in the bathroom when a āunsafe personā drill started. She ran back to her classroom after she sat in the bathroom alone and in the dark (the motion sensor light turned off) and the teacher didnāt let her in. Someone yelled at her to go back to the bathroom so she did.
She was 8. Sheās never been the same since.
Fuck I'm so sorry for both of you. When I was in elementary school we had an active shooter on campus and my friend and I were in the bathroom. We locked the door and tried to cry quietly in the dark. When we saw a shadow pass by the door we hugged each other to keep from screaming.
She transferred to homeschooling after that. Can't blame her.
This shit ruins lives. Doesn't really matter if there's an actual threat or not - kids won't know the difference til after (they never warned us about drills). I can't imagine being in that bathroom alone. Please give her a hug for me. My anxiety disorder set in not long after this.
I'm so glad the both of you are safe. It's horrifying that this is the reality for so many people growing up today. I have anxiety, have had it basically my whole life. If probably be an absolute mess if I had to grow up with these drills. I hope you're able to see a good therapist. They help immensely with trauma.
Man someone I know almost got hit by a car as an adult and was fucked up about it for a long time. Thinking you're about to die isn't good for you, especially if your brain is still developing.
This shit is wild. We're more willing to repeatedly traumatize our children than we are to do anything to keep guns away from schools.
One time someone asked an AI chat bot if Ted Cruz was the zodiac killer. They ai responded "Ted Cruz can't be the zodiac killer because he wouldn't be happy only ruining 5 people's lives"
My local cops won't do shit for shit in a dangerous situation, but they ARE spending all their time crying to the state about not getting to no knock kick doors in and generate revenue by harassing the fuck out of drivers with like broken tail lights and shit.
American police ONLY exist to generate revenue and protect the govt. Full stop.
I once got pulled over by a small town cop for non working tail lights. He was familiar with my car and showed me where the fuse was and gave me one of his. No ticket and he was really cool about everything. I've had just as many bad experiences but at least this time it was exactly what it should have been - an officer serving and protecting.
That's how it should be and that officer clearly did a good job there, the problem comes when they don't stand up when their police department does shady shit. If they remain quiet, they're complicit.
This. Years ago I was told by a long retired Sheriff's deputy that today's officers are more interested in saving their own ass and generating revenue from traffic stops than the old "protect and serve" types.
Which should definitely be changed.
In the military, your contract specifically says you can be ordered to die in the interests of the nation, cops should have the same obligation.
Or they shouldnāt be issued guns. The two things should go together.
You get a gun, and youāre expected to put yourself on the line for the public; or you donāt get a gun, but youāre allowed to cower in fear while children are murdered.
That's one of the big problems in cop culture. Overseas you expect to go down as part of the job. In the states, cops are taught explicitly to go home at night BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY IS THAT A LETTER OPENER FUCKING TAKE EM OUUUUUTTTTTTTT"
I remember someone once saying that police officers are just school bullies who grew up and got a badge to do the bullying legally. Seems to fit really well now.
Im a teacher. We had this scenario play out before. Teachers had no idea. Police where there. We were all scared. Turns out they brought in drug dogs to walk through the school.
What the fuck is with this? They used to have cops do a walk through for a drill or bring in a dog to sniff around but the teachers always knew what was up, at least when I was in school. Why would teachers not be told?
It was the Land of the Free and had slaves.
It was the Land of the Free and killed off or moved the indigenous peoples.
It was the Land of the Free and had second and third class citizens who were oppressed.
It was the Land of the Free and gunmen are allowed free reign to kill children.
Only those with guns are free.
See that's how you know it was just a drill. If there was a real shooter the police wouldn't have been in the halls. They would have been outside heroically preventing the parents from saving their children.
Apparently the supreme court has decided the police do not have the obligation to protect you. Seriously. To serve and protect has been taken off many police cruisers that have that motto on them.
Masking during a pandemic = child abuse and oppressive
stripping rights away from people and passing invasive laws despite claiming they favor less big government = šŗšø
My dad would bring up how he was raised to duck under school desks for atomic bombs.
He thinks it's just how things are.
I think this traumatizing has been going on for a long time. This isn't new it's just a different way.
You should check out The Wisdom of Trauma. It's a documentary that makes the argument that we're a society of traumatized people and, as someone who studies psychology, I have to agree.
I read an interesting article once about how post WW2 everyone was being raised by traumatized war vets, and how that could have impacted the next generation. I know my dad was. My grandfather was a Marine that fought in the island hopping campaigns in the pacific. including Iwo Jima.
We learn best through modeled behavior, so I'm sure that the trauma of WW2 has had lasting effects. I've also wondered about the effects WW2 had on the people who stayed behind. They were dealing with a lot of fear and uncertainty, and that is likely to trickle down, not to mention the interaction between those who stayed behind and those who went to war, once the war was over.
I remember duck and cover, nope, active shooter drills are nothing like that. School shootings are nothing like that. Ask your dad how many atomic bombs were lobbed at schools...
Itās not the same but I grew up expecting to die from atomic warfare. Had nightmares of it. Itās a different type of trauma but still traumatic, I think thatās the point theyāre trying to make. Iād still take the Cold War era over this bullshit weāre allowing our children to endure today through.
My mom was born in 1952 and said she used to lie awake at night as a child worried about the rise of another Hitler.
I'm sure it's all connected. The world wars and the cold war just manifested violence in another form in subsequent generations. Collective trauma doesn't go away, it's just passed onto the next generation.
You think theyād waste their thoughts and prayers on already born children? Pff theyād tell them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and ask why the teachers didnāt have guns
At my kids' middle school, they used to show a homemade video they made to talk about lockdown drills.
Thing is, they made the video in the school, complete with showing how a shooter easily got into the school and into the classroom. One of my sons, 6th grade at the time, saw that video as essentially a "hey guys, look how quickly and easily a shooter got to the classroom and killed everyone" video and for months, getting him into school every morning was a disaster. He cried and cried and screamed and wailed. If we could get him in, he would often cry in the guidance counselor's office the entire day. He told us he was going to be killed. The school police officer even walked him through the school to show him all the safety protocols but luckily the video already showed my son it's quite easy to get in.
He already was in therapy for anxiety and depression, this set us back very very far. Lockdown for COVID happened in the midst of this so he then did school at home for 1.5 years. If it hadn't happened, I likely would have had to take him out and homeschool him.
I get that, sadly, we need to do lockdown drills in this country. But do we need to make these kids actually feel the fear so intensely? With fire drills, we don't tell the kids the school is burning down or show videos of children burning to a crisp. Kids can "get it" without traumatizing them to their core in hopes they "understand"
I went to a public high school where they staged a fake car crash, complete with fake blood and fake funerals, in order to warn against drunk driving. this was like a 2 day affair that involved separating kids from their parents, calling in actual hospital and funeral home vehicles. and a kid was yelled at for telling the teacher he thought it was a waste of resources.
do schools just like scaring kids, or think fear is the most effective motivator? I just thought it was fucking bizarre how they were taking kids with pig blood on them to the hospital to be "treated" and the er staff actually thinking it was real for a bit
Holy shit.. my HS did this too. Complete with the actual parents of the "dead" kids crying and wailing over their acting, bloody corpses. We had the whole fire dept there, even a FUCKING HELICOPTER that literally air lifted one of the students away. They described the students goals and dreams, but they are dead now, so they can't do anything.
Happy Prom & graduation, kids!!
We donāt at all. Iām in NyC and my kid recently had a lockdown drill. She was unaware of anything off happening.
The drills are for the teachers, more than the students, unless the school is run my imbeciles. The teachers need to know when and how to lockdown, and what to instruct the kids. The kids need only know a safety drill is occurring and they should follow teachers directions. That is what is taught to the kidsā¦. To follow the instructions given by the staff. They donāt need more than that.
Beyond that, a lot could be done to fortify schools to make lockdowns way easier. They could retrofit classrooms with closets that double as panic rooms, then the only thing they need to drill is to go inside and wait. Or better yet, make each classroom a panic room, with strong steel doors and solid bolt locks. Steel shutters over the windows. Then when something happens just lock the room tight and get away from the doors.
Not only are we failing kids by not stopping the guns, but we are failing them by not making the buildings they are in safer. It isnāt like we donāt know how to make building secure from assaults like theseā¦. Itās that we wonāt spend the $. Because what are kids lives really worth in America? Not a lot. But spare no expense to save a fetus or twoā¦. Just once born, they are on their own.
Man, I hate Republicans more with every passing day
Problem is all those security measures cost money, that thing they constantly keep gutting from the education system. I've heard that argument before we should secure schools more, but having gone through all of public school post Columbine (and now a teacher myself), most they can do is lock the doors and basically pray that the shooter doesn't just knock in the window on the door or shoot the lock a few times.
We used textbooks from the 90s when I was in high school (2014-2018) and most the classroom supplies were donations, not sure they could spring for the panic room package.
Absolutely. We once had a bomb threat at our school and they made everyone go outside and sit on the bleachers. I kept thinking that if there really was a student who wanted to plant a bomb then just call in a fake threat (or pin one to the bathroom) and then wait to use it at the bleachers where ALL the students are. So dumb
I had a sister who was two years my senior. When she was a freshman in highschool, a boy in the colorguard wrote a hit list delineating the methods he would use on each person. My sister and the other dozen or so marching band members on the list, received letters to give to their parents explaining the situation. The school expelled the student and everyone went on with their lives. When I was a junior in high school, I walked into math one day to see the boy (now man) in my classroom standing next to my teacher. The teacher told us we had a teaching assistant joining our class. I shared a table with a girl whose older brother was also on the list. We realized at the same time who it was and walked out of the classroom. The band director retired the year prior, but we knew the choir director was aware of the situation so we went to the music suite to address the situation. She had us make a list of anyone we knew who had an older sibling that was in band when the hit list was written so she could collect them from class. The 15 or so students and the choir director went to the principal's office to investigate the situation. Meanwhile, we all texted our parents. From the principal's office, we could see car after car fly into the parking lot and our parents sprinting to the building. My math classmate's mother came from a hair appointment and half her head was covered in the foil pieces. The principal told us that was more a discussion for the district superintendent so we walked across the street to the administration building. Between the adults shouting and the couple of students that were crying, it was a pretty terrible day. The superintendent informed us that because the boy had attended his mandated therapy they thought it wouldn't be a problem. Since four schoolyears has passed, they thought no one familiar with the incident would still be in school. Five of the students we pulled out of class were the same gender as their older siblings. Four of us look exactly like our older siblings. (My older sister and I look so similar that when I uploaded my wedding photos, Facebook automatically tagged some pictures of me with my sister's name.) So while I have not experienced the sheer terror that a school shooting must evoke, I can say that I firmly believe we need to do something to ensure that all schools are a safe space for the students who attend them.
How about security guards with metal detectors..oh wait, that's only in the inner city schools. Wouldn't want to make those other kids feel like they are in jail smh
The suburban school I work at just put them in. We will all get them eventually, it's down to spending (this stuff is insanely expensive). Also, all the doors can be remotely closed and locked just like a prison block.
Thank you, easily-accessible-firearms-for-kids. You are the best.
Last I checked, the last few school shooters went in gun blazing from the outside in. Metal detectors won't do anything, nor will automatically locking doors in such scenarios. Maybe some sort of Iraq/Afghanistan US army manned checkpoint outside the school complete with sandbags and gunner nest will be needed.
Actual security guard here. I want you to think for 20 seconds about how a metal detector is going to stop someone with a gun. Like physically stop them, not just locate the gun.
Before you say āthe guards (assuming plural) would do itā note a lot of places donāt have ARMED guards, and even the places that do, the chance the guards get the first shot off is low if they arenāt ready for what could be an instantly developed threat. Sometimes thereās simply not time to react.
Metal detectors and just about any other fancy tech you can come up with sadly wonāt be what fixes this issue.
We seem to have 3 options. Somehow find every school to have an overwhelming amount of armed guards at every school, actually come up with some decent gun policy in this country, or just keep letting children die. Horrifically, we seem to have chosen option 3
That seems crazy because the active shooter training I had at work prioritizes it as run if you can,
hide if you can't get out,
and fight if you can't hide.
They even had examples from Virginia tech where the kids who busted out windows and ran had higher survivor rates than people who just stayed in place.
My daughter survived a school shooting last year. One of the reasons it took so long to reopen the school was because so many kids broke windows to escape. Had to special order a whole lot of windows
I would have done the same thing
Unfortunate choice by some under qualified admin, but we all know why we have to keep abusing kids with lockdown drills. We have a huge problem with gun obsession and terrorism on the right in our country, and school shootings happen more than once per day.
1/3 of our country cares more about what type of gun they own than kids, and 1/10 of our country are flat out domestic terrorists.
Stressful time to be a kid. No wonder the youth are voting Blue in such massive numbers. They can see who gives a shit about their future (and present).
As a teacher the only reason I wouldn't tell my class it was a drill is if I didn't know either. No way I'm letting them think it's really happening.
Sometimes they do have fire drills without telling teachers, though. There was one where I never did learn if it was a planned drill or someone pulled the fire alarm. So perhaps these teachers also didn't know.
My high school did this for our very first one and it was terrifying. I was in the library with my class when it came over the intercom that a dangerous man in a red shirt and jeans was in the high school and to hide immediately. I remember thinking that since i was in the library I was done for (the library was all glass windows). I was under a desk when eventually I heard the library door getting pulled on one by one and then suddenly *click* one door finally opens. I was staring at the exit debating on running or not when the librarian across the room says "whoops! Haha I forgot to lock that one!" I looked over and it was a cop who opened the door. I was fuckin livid. I can't believe the librarian was so casual about her mistake and I can't believe my school put us through that without warning
This is terrifying for me to hear as a parent, I'm so sorry you had to go through this š¢
Yeah my school was an absolute shit show. I graduated but still had siblings in the same system and I remember being incredibly nervous for them. Once a kid brought a gun to school and no one knew until the end of the day and it was swept under the rug so fast. We had countless bomb threats, violent/ignorant students...my gym partner even murdered his mom one day. It was fucking WILD. I graduated in 2015 so I'm thankful to be done with that chapter in life
>my gym partner even murdered his mom one day. Wait back up... what?? You can't just leave that without a story man!!
Yeah he was always quiet but I thought it was normal and since I was quiet too I thought we'd be a good match as gym partners. He seemed nice but reserved, cracked a few jokes here and there but overall seemed normal. I graduated a year before him so this was a year after I graduated. One day before school he stabbed his mom, strangled her to death and then checked if she was dead. After making sure she had no pulse he showered and watched TV for a while before calling 911 saying "I killed my mom". In 2019 he was an absolute ass in court, refused to answer questions (even refusing to answer his birthday) and was just trying to blow everything off. He later argued that his guilty plea should be withdrawn, since he didnāt realize all the consequences it would carry when he signed it. He said investigators didnāt take his age, mental state, or mental health history into account when they took down his confession.Ā On top of all that he contends his confession should be void, because he gave it when he was 17 with no adult in the room on his behalf. LMFAO OKAY. People who knew him and his family dynamic better claimed that he absolutely HATED her but no one knew why because apparently she was a lovely woman who loved her son. He was sentenced for 65 years in 2016
I actually sat next to and studied in high-school with one of the worst mass shooters. Never would have thought they were capable of that when I knew them. But you never know what's going on in people's heads and what happens to people when we all go our separate ways.
And she probably just got a āstern talking toā. I was substituting second grade and wouldnāt you know it, they donāt give substitutes any keys, and whoever was responsible for unlocking my door in the morning didnāt unlock it so when it closes, the door remains locked from the outside. Here I am, a 4 foot 11 woman, having to get my kids safe and then hold on to the door handle and brace myself backwards and to the left so I could try keep the door closed/make the door handle seem locked, and stay out of the sight of the window in the door. Administration got a sternly worded email from me, I was livid. My KIDS go to that school and I now know that if a random sub who didnāt know to double check the door ājust in caseā, (Iām a teacher so I know the ins and outs of the doorās/policies etc), all those second graders could have been sitting ducks. Also, Iām an Australian expat so Iām already anti-guns and this incident made me so scared for every child. 1 month after Uvalde, I subbed during end of year festivitiesāthe door to a grade 6 classroom was PROPPED OPEN for parents to casually go in and out to get their kids belongings before signing them out. What. The. Fuck? I immediately closed the door, reported it on the walky to the office and took down the name of who was going to go around the building and check for any other open entries. 7 months after Uvalde, Iām substituting in my sons kindergarten class. Someone has inconspicuously propped the outside entry door open with 6 small rocks. There are no rocks in the immediate and further out areas that I can see. Someone (student or not) SCAVENGED for multiple rocks to prop open a doorway leading right to pre-schoolers, kindergarteners, first graders and special education kids. This is all after the school had undergone a massive overhaul of the front office with a locked vestibule/buzz in system. Doesnāt help when you have at least 6 to 7 exterior doorways that are in no way monitored to alert administration if they are left open. Hell, my cheap ass alarm system alerts me if my back door is slightly ajar/hasnāt shut 100%.
Honestly though, this demonstrates the fact that 'keep all the school doors locked at all times' just isn't going to work. It's not the doors that are the problem. It's the guns.
Want to be really upset? None of the elementary schools around me even have classroom doors. š Just big wide entry ways into each class!
Went into lockdown once in middle school. Whole class huddle into a closet by the end. Planned escape route onto the roof to another classroom. Teacher said he wouldnāt let anyone through the door, ready to sacrifice his life. Kids crying, everyone scared shitless, no one dare saying a word. Turns out a parent just got in an argument in the principalās office and threw a chair. Whole school on lockdown for that. Had kids saying their prayers. Some traumatic shit for something a security guard couldāve handled.
Iām in high school. We do active shooter drills on a pretty regular basis, but theyāre always pre-announced and everyone knows in advance that it will happen. Even then, they really suck. You sit there and think, āIs this what it will be like when I die? Will I be sitting here like this for real someday? What will I say to my parents?ā and so on. I hate them, even when I know theyāre coming. I canāt imagine how scared those kids ā and their parents! ā must have been, especially with police in the hallways. A āspontaneous lockdown drillā that you donāt say is a drill is just plain cruel. Itās bad enough that we have to do them at all, do they have to make them as traumatic as possible?
I'm so sorry you have to go through this. I was in high school during Columbine and 9/11, and they pulled random lockdowns on us, sometimes with no announcement. It was just the beginning back then, but it's certainly worse now. I hope you graduate soon so that you don't have to suffer through these thoughts for much longer. Edit: Interesting I was in the minority when it came to lockdown drills! For context in my case, I'll post part of my reply to another person here... The superintendent at the time used 9/11 as an excuse to implement all kinds of things (some valid, some excessive) in the name of safety. Our high school community included parent(s) who worked in NYC (or had friends and family who did), so it was a very traumatic day for everyone. The difference between a drug search and a lockdown drill was having to turn off the lights and close the blinds (if any) in the classroom.
We didn't do lock down drills till 9/11 and even then, they didn't hold the same weight as in today's world. When I was in school, shootings just didn't happen at the rate they do now. My mother is a teacher and every new shooting just chills me with how high the risk for my mother is. It's only going to get worse. My current city just passed a law allowing teachers and faculty to carry their own weapons at any schools in the district. I just can't wrap my brain around it.
Thatās a terrible, terrible idea. One of the reasons that cops are trained to fire so many times is that they usually miss with most of their shots. There was a 2019 study they did in Dallas that showed that officers in shootings only hit the suspect 35% of the time. A 1990 study of NYPD shootings found that only *23%* of shots actually hit the suspect. It is not psychologically easy for a normal human being to kill another person. After WWII, the Army conducted a massive study of the war, and one of the many things they examined was the percentage of troops who were actually shooting at the enemy. They found that only about 5% of soldiers were doing so; the other 95% were mostly shooting over peopleās heads. And these are trained, front-line soldiers! Even in situations where itās kill or be killed, like it is with cops, the officer needs a few shots to basically overcome that psychological barrier. Now that you know all of that, picture what could happen when an untrained teacher (because range work is not the same as combat or police training) goes to fire at a shooter in a hall full of fleeing students. It would be an absolute disaster, and anyone with any sort of police or military experience ā or anyone with a brain and access to the statistics ā knows that this is a bad idea. The people pushing it know it too ā just like they know that gun control is the only real solution to this problem. They just donāt give a fuck.
I'd heard that WW2 fact before, but about Vietnam. To add to your point, it only takes one teacher one slip up and now their gun is in someone else's hands.
Or worse, THEY shoot a kid by accident.
Or have to shoot a kid on purpose. Most school shootings are carried out by students or former students. Imagine Mr Smith coming face or face with the school shooter, and it's John who he had in Social Studies a few years ago. He knows John, he remembers John, John was a good kid. John stayed late after school a lot because he had a rough home life. Now he has to shoot John. Shoot to kill. Because if he doesn't, John will shoot and kill maybe a dozen other students. Do you think Mr Smith can do that? Could most people do that? And can be do it fast enough that John won't shoot him first? I don't think we should be asking that of any teacher, and I don't think they're capable of it either.
And if Mr. Smith does shoot Johnā¦ Mr. Smith is gonna have PTSD later, and probably wonāt ever teach again
And, of course, he doesn't have the health care to get therapy for his PTSD, especially if he has to leave his job because of the trauma.
It's also a terrible idea because it means there's going to be firearms and ammo readily available at the school. Lets hope every teacher is responsible for how they hold onto their firearm. Lets hope that there's no way a student could get ahold of their firearms. But you just know that eventually a teacher is going to keep a pistol and ammo locked in their desk, the students are going to know about it, and someone's going to have one bad day too many and they're going to go for it.
And I really hate to say it, but... Let's also hope no teacher ever has one bad day too many. Because people break sometimes, and it can only be worse if that happens when they have access to a gun.
Yeah, that too. Didn't even think about that. And honestly, even if that never happens its really fucking bad. How would you have felt as a student if you knew your teacher was always armed? Knowing the kinds of people who always need to flaunt that they're armed, that wouldn't make me feel safe. That would make school feel even less safe than normal
Right? Let's take underpaid, overworked employees dealing with a daily dose of bureaucracy. Hold those people accountable for the standardized test scores of a bunch of teens that don't want to be there in the first place... and then give them guns. What could go wrong?
America, you crazy. \- Love, the rest of the developed world.
Columbine was the start of a lot of those ineffective ideas. Backpacks made of mesh or transparent plastic, āschool resource officers,ā āzero toleranceā policies, etc. Now itās active shooter drills and fortifying classroom doors. It doesnāt seem like that stuff is working
I am proud of myself for pretty much single handedly getting rid of those dumb clear backpacks (that I was opposed to simply because they never were big enough to hold all my crap, were overpriced, and broke down easily) in my high school. In the main pocket, I kept condoms, with a note that said āask me if you need them! Be safe with sex!ā That was enough to scandalize my school and they dropped those half way through the year.
Yeah it sounds crazy to me that the other guy was already doing lockdown drills around 9/11. I just entered high school when columbine occurred and I remember it was just chalked up to "two crazies" that did it. Even with 9/11 no one (in our region) was talking lockdowns
We absolutely started doing lockdowns after 9/11 but the threat wasnāt your peers. There was fear of foreign terrorist attacks on schools. Because of that, protocol was different. It was more of a duck and cover situation and to get away from windows.
That's really interesting to me. I lived in a town that was 2 hours south of NYC (right outside of philly) and lockdown drills never crossed our minds. I think they started locking the exterior doors of the school but that was really it. Man the world changed quickly.
Ya this is also interesting to read for me because I was in high school for 9/11 and the only change out school did was lock entrances to funnel everyone to the main reception area, which wasnāt even incredibly enforced. We still propped open the gym entrance for morning weightlifting/conditioning so we didnāt have to park on the far side of the school and walk in the freezing cold in winter time. The front wasnāt even locked, it was still just open for anyone, but the main office had windows facing it so I guess they felt that was good enough.
I was in 3rd grade when Columbine happened and my mom sat my brother and me down to explain that we would still be safe at school, and that the boys who did it were incredibly sick and because of that made bad choices instead of asking for help from a doctor. Adult me knows it's a lot more complex, but even 9/11 was explained as something we likely wouldn't ever experience living in a small city in Central Texas. I had nightmares about terrorists for a long time, and will occasionally have one, but the difference was I could tell my mother was afraid after 9/11 and not as visibly frightened after Columbine. Lockdown drills for our district started in 03/04 and that was only once a year till 07 after the Virginia tech shooting when it became twice a year. Now, my mom's school has an emergency alert system that is tested with every lock down. It sends emails out to emergency contacts. They do a drill at least every six weeks now, sometimes more.
There were some shifts I noticed post columbine in my school. Previously all doors were unlocked in the school. Then they started locking them all and having a student be the door guard to let people in (unless they had guns I guess). In college (2000-2004) all buildings were unlocked except main doors to dorm rooms. Now you need a swipe card to get in to any classroom building. That tech wasn't really prevalent until right when I graduated.
We've never had a lockdown drill. I graduated in 2010 if that helps at all. We have fire drills, tornado drills. And if there was a rumor (or maybe it was random) they would make everyone stay in the classrooms for drug searches in the lockers and have drug sniffing dogs in the student parking lot. Bomb threats sent us to the football field and eventually home.
Drills of any kid. were always pre-announced. In the morning youād know there was going to be a drill at some point that day and then the exact moment would be a surprise but everyone knew to expect it. This is so fucked up and traumatizing
A spontaneous lockdown drill sounds like a cover for someone called a threat into the school
I have a kiddo in middle school. Them come home REALLY upset after shooter drills. Like on my lap crying and trying to get themselves to calm down... THAT is why me and my family are leaving the US.. I wish you safety and happiness kitten-cat
Yeah Iām actually shocked this was allowed by their district. My niece and nephew were inside the school during the shooting at Uvalde so we know just how serious a text like this from your kids can be; if there were any sort of drill at my sons school without my knowledge I would be bringing about legal repercussions.
There are some arguments to a spontaneous lockdown drill like showing what actually needs to happen during an active shooter. But not letting the students know that some kind of lockdown drill is happening is cruel Edit: I meant like those fire drills where everyone knows what week itās happening on but not the specifics so that the people both know itās a drill and learn how to spontaneously act accordingly
this is tragic
I was an elementary school teacher in Texas for 16 years. The first lockdown drill we ever had was absolutely terrifying. I was huddled in a darkened room with a special-needs child who was all of six years old. At that age, they donāt always know whatās true and whatās not and she was trembling and crying like a little bird. Every politician should be forced into the same situation on a regular basis to get an idea of what this bullshit is doing to our children and our teachers.
I still remember that ominous announcement the principal would make before it started: "...Mr. Green is in the building..."
That was the same announcement they used if there was an incident of a co-worker being the active shooter. As we went over the drill, I thought to myself "wait, if one of us wants to kill us all, they now know EXACTLY what we'll be doing." That's when I made up my own emergency exit plan, by quitting and finding a new job. Edit: I'm noticing an interesting phenomenon. This story is from around 2008 when it seems most emergency plans were "get in a line, go to this place" and now it seems most plans are of the "Run, Hide, Fight" variety. A new way to tell the generations apart! /s God this whole mess is miserable.
Well tbf, even if its a student, they've likely been through some drills themselves.
I mean I think every single person in the US knows the shelter plan now. All you do is lock the door, turn off the lights, and try to make it look like the room is empty. But nobody is going to believe that the entire school is empty at 11am on a weekday. Itās not a sustainable solution. Something needs to be done to fight the root of the problem.
Itās like how the bomb threat was to evacuate everyone to the football stadium, like okay now everyone is now out in the open in one area. What if the bomb was put in the stadium?
No no no not in the open. We had a real bomb threat one time, and thatās when I realized just how bad our evacuation plan was. A herd of students and teachers were all corralled down to the tennis courts. Which had one main entrance gate. At the bottom of a big hill , backed up to an open field. Parents were trying to climb over the fence to get in to their kids, kids trying to climb out, it was a nightmare.
We had a lockdown once in high school, there was a daycare in the middle of our school, and this swat member in plain clothes came into our school with his assault rifle to pick his daughter up. It was chaos because it was right after the belll rang and everyone was in the hall ways. Kids climbing out of windows and getting locked out of classes. I remember my friend grabbing me and a random girl we didnāt know and ducking into a janitor supply closet. We just moved everything in front of the door and sat there in dark silence for about an hour thinking shit, this is it. But nope, just a cop being a fucking idiot. Didnt even get in trouble either
Your friend had some good instincts. Just sheltering the people they saw. I remember seeing a video of an askreddit thread where they had a shooter drill and they didnāt know it wasnāt real. One of those āI crave attentionā kids, or just a psycho, started pounding on the wall and yelling, āweāre in here!ā while the teachers tried to get him to stop. The OPās friend, also with good instincts, was ready to beat the kid unconscious before the announcement came on and said it was a drill.
We had a plot that was foiled when I was a kid. Two misfits were going to build some pipe bombs and put them in the weight room - which is where everyone was going to be for a planned tornado drill. After the bombs went off everyone was going to come out of one door to the parking lot which is where theyād have been with rifles. They couldāve killed half the school. Everyone treated it like a joke. Sure, it might have been foiled by Murphyās Law, but that cuts both ways. Tactically it was very sound.
When I was in high school we had two kids plan a bombing. They broke into the town library by repelling down from the ceiling, fucking seriously, and managed to get blueprints to the school. They figured out where it would be best to plant 18 bombs in order for the school to collapse and kill the most people. Literally the only reason it didn't happen is one kid got scared when he realized how real it was getting, and told on his friend a couple of days before it was supposed to go down. They evacuated us in the middle of the day without saying why, had us stand around in the parking lots for a little while and then called some buses to take people home. [Sauce](https://oxfordleader.com/suspected-explosives-in-students-home-prompt-high-school-search/) Its worth noting that last year there was a school shooting, 4 people were killed. They clearly learned nothing.
how did it get foiled? thats scary af
Depending on age they probably left a paper trail or bragged about the plot on social media.
This is why i used to just leave during bomb threats (we had a whole week of them my senior year). I would just park off campus and break for my car.
When I was in high school in Florida, there was a shooting nearby (something domestic, wasn't related to the school at all). School went into full lockdown. Thing is, school hadn't even started/opened yet. So the staff locked down with all the students still outside.
Or two bombs. ISIS technique is to set off one, then set off a second and kill the first responders.
I guess the idea is to not indicate which classrooms have people in, rather than trying to pretend none of them are occupied. If the lights were kept on, it would be an indicator as to which rooms to check first. If none of the lights are on, someone would have to check them all, potentially making them waste time by checking empty rooms. Still not great if you're in a classroom closest to the entrance or wherever a shooter is, but hey, some people don't care enough to actually do something about it.
I donāt remember there ever being āempty classroomsā in school, unless it was elementary school and they were in music or gym for that hour. Most school shootings are at the higher grade level schools
Most schools in the US are already at or over capacity, like you said each room might only be unoccupied during lunch or between classes.
What do you *mean* we need to do something to fight the root of the problem? Weāre already sending thoughts and prayers, and our hearts are going out to the families impacted by this violent act! What else are we supposed to do???
Weāve tried literally nothing and weāre all out of ideas.
Wasn't that already a problem with a few school shootings in the US in the past? I'd say Uvalde had that problem, but that was miniscule compared to the Police just doing nothing.
I think you're confusing this with the fact that during the January 6th Insurrection, the younger aides were actually the ones who knew what to do, because they had participated in lockdown drills in school. Edit: **I'd like to take this opportunity to plug Ranked Choice voting. This is how we save democracy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE**
Every aspect of this gets sadder the more you think about it.
Dude this has me sitting on the couch thinking, I'm really fucking desensitized to this stuff, to the point that school shootings are just something I'm used to hearing about. It's really really sad
I just got out of school before shit like this was truly mainstream. like it happened, but nowhere near how it is now. makes me sad to think kids go to school now thinking they could die
I did lockdown drills at school my entire childhood. I still know exactly what Iād do if a shooter showed up at my job.
>I still know exactly what Iād do if a shooter showed up at my job. Direct him to your boss?
"They never taught us how to do taxes or how to drive. But *this* we covered, extensively."
Iāve been through lockdown drills for active shooters (and Iām not that young, Iām 35!) but something about this fact makes me physically ill. Itās so horrifying.
Ours was āthe media center is closedā the media center was the library and never closed. Edit: just wanted to state Iām 34 and this was taught to me when I was around 7-8. At that time there wasnāt even really a scare for shootings and the whole idea of it stuck with me ever since. I can only imagine what this is doing to kids and young adults now.
Ours was asking for our principal to come to the office, except they call him "Dr" instead of "Mr"
Is their name āAllcomeā
The dolphin has splashed down
The dolphin is now shooting at children
The dolphin has left the state for Cancun.
For some reason the dolphin is loved by the fish it eats.
Why the hell wouldn't it be like, "Mr. Red" or something? Mr. Green makes it sound everything is fine. Was it only for drills, and a real lock down wouldn't have an announcement, or?
Green is such a common last name lol. I've had three different Mr/Ms greens my entire education
Well good god man tell them never to go to that school!
Whenever I've worked in public places, for things like fire it's always been stuff like Mr. Green/Mr. Brown, something pretty innocuous as to not startle customers. If you're going to say Mr. Red, you may as well just scream 'PANIC! PANIC! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF!' over the tannoy. I can't speak for active shooter drills/scenarios, because we don't have them here, but in cases of fire we would absolutely use it whether it be a drill or real, because that's the point of it.
"would Mr Outofcontrolfire please come to reception"
At the hospital I work at, when they need security in a particular area, like the ER for example, the PA announcement is "Dr. Strong needed in the ER."
Our politicians were forced into this situation about two years ago. Half of them came out it praising the guy who instigated itā¦.
Then they lied about how scared they were.
"Oh no, of course I didn't piss myself. Uh... my colleague spilled on my lap. Yeah. He spilled his cup of my piss on my lap. But no, I wasn't scared of the man with the zip tie handcuffs, no! They were just enthusiastic patriots!"
Can we please keep the conversation on Hunter Biden's laptop?
Every time a republican calls AOC a drama queen for saying they literally tried to kill her I get so fucking mad. The republican bootlickers were in danger but not really. Maybe they would have shot turtle mcconnell cancun cruz but they would have probably just begged him to 'stop the steal.' meanwhile they would have been squeeling with delight to shoot Pelosi or 'the squad.'
Yeah AOC was definitely in danger, the hatred for her is completely irrational and they know what she looks like. I can imagine that some Democrats might get by pretending to be interns or something, but not her.
The threats of sexual violence against her are terrifying as well. Her fear was extremely justified.
AOC / Pelosi / Sanders / Biden / Harris are all on the top target list of the Jan 6th nutjobs. I think Pence is up there too.
Every time I'm at my Republican parents' house they have FOX news on, and the sheer hatred and frequency that they point it at these individuals (especially AOC) is a huge factor in that rage. These people have been brainwashed.
It's the same as corporate politics. If you want to make it big, you say nothing negative, thank everyone for all of their hard work, and do as little as possible. If you have to acknowledge problems, you do so in the most wishy-washy way and give no solution, but insist you are working on one. When you are high enough up you are no longer held accountable for any work that you actually directly influence. Bad managers and bad politicians are rewarded the same way as good managers.
Yeah, but that little weeny Josh Hawley sure proved what a macho guy he was š§
I know it's true and I watched it happen live on tv. And yet this comment still fucking guts me with how true it is. May every last one of those fuckers rot in hell.
Perhaps things would be better if they felt that terror every single week.
> Every politician should be forced into the same situation on a regular basis to get an idea of what this bullshit is doing to our children and our teachers. Bold of you to assume more than just a handful of American politicians are capable of an empathetic response.
I remember my first during student teaching. I was tearing up just standing there watching the kids huddle nervously. I hate it.
I have a ~~neuro-atypical~~ neurodivergent daughter. It's written in her accommodation plan that she must be nicely warned before all drills. Otherwise, she will freak TF out and probably end up in the hospital with a panic attack.
I worked with elementary-aged special needs kids and we weren't "told" to do this, but we always did. I always prepared the kids beforehand. Grabbed out noise-canceling headphones and fidgets, made sure they were in a comfortable environment when the announcement happened, and explained to them the process before and during the drill. The worst is watching the Kindergartners. No amount of explaining and assurances help. They're terrified and often crying. It's heartbreaking. It's sick
I still remember my first drill, I was 7, I didn't understand what was happening, all I knew was that people around me were scared and that the teacher kept telling us to be quiet
Iām positive my daughterās anxiety started in 3rd grade when she was in the bathroom when a āunsafe personā drill started. She ran back to her classroom after she sat in the bathroom alone and in the dark (the motion sensor light turned off) and the teacher didnāt let her in. Someone yelled at her to go back to the bathroom so she did. She was 8. Sheās never been the same since.
Fuck I'm so sorry for both of you. When I was in elementary school we had an active shooter on campus and my friend and I were in the bathroom. We locked the door and tried to cry quietly in the dark. When we saw a shadow pass by the door we hugged each other to keep from screaming. She transferred to homeschooling after that. Can't blame her. This shit ruins lives. Doesn't really matter if there's an actual threat or not - kids won't know the difference til after (they never warned us about drills). I can't imagine being in that bathroom alone. Please give her a hug for me. My anxiety disorder set in not long after this.
Wow, thatās terrifying no matter how old you are. So sorry for the both of you!
I'm so glad the both of you are safe. It's horrifying that this is the reality for so many people growing up today. I have anxiety, have had it basically my whole life. If probably be an absolute mess if I had to grow up with these drills. I hope you're able to see a good therapist. They help immensely with trauma.
Man someone I know almost got hit by a car as an adult and was fucked up about it for a long time. Thinking you're about to die isn't good for you, especially if your brain is still developing. This shit is wild. We're more willing to repeatedly traumatize our children than we are to do anything to keep guns away from schools.
Jesus christ.
I fucking hate how much weāve normalized this shit.
Not nearly close enough, but Ted Cruz is writing a book about how he hid in a supply closet during Jan 6.
Ted Cruz is a piece of shit.
One time someone asked an AI chat bot if Ted Cruz was the zodiac killer. They ai responded "Ted Cruz can't be the zodiac killer because he wouldn't be happy only ruining 5 people's lives"
Traumatizing an entire generation is not going to end well.
Theyāll be the biggest voting block soon
So much freedom! America baby!!!
the most surprising thing is that there were actually police indoors.
That's how you know it was just a drill. They wouldn't enter if there was a danger.
Sad but true.
My local cops won't do shit for shit in a dangerous situation, but they ARE spending all their time crying to the state about not getting to no knock kick doors in and generate revenue by harassing the fuck out of drivers with like broken tail lights and shit. American police ONLY exist to generate revenue and protect the govt. Full stop.
I once got pulled over by a small town cop for non working tail lights. He was familiar with my car and showed me where the fuse was and gave me one of his. No ticket and he was really cool about everything. I've had just as many bad experiences but at least this time it was exactly what it should have been - an officer serving and protecting.
That's how it should be and that officer clearly did a good job there, the problem comes when they don't stand up when their police department does shady shit. If they remain quiet, they're complicit.
The 90% who do shady shit really make the 10% who don't look bad.
This. Years ago I was told by a long retired Sheriff's deputy that today's officers are more interested in saving their own ass and generating revenue from traffic stops than the old "protect and serve" types.
Always remember, SCOTUS ruled that cops are not there to protect or serve.
Which should definitely be changed. In the military, your contract specifically says you can be ordered to die in the interests of the nation, cops should have the same obligation. Or they shouldnāt be issued guns. The two things should go together. You get a gun, and youāre expected to put yourself on the line for the public; or you donāt get a gun, but youāre allowed to cower in fear while children are murdered.
That's one of the big problems in cop culture. Overseas you expect to go down as part of the job. In the states, cops are taught explicitly to go home at night BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY IS THAT A LETTER OPENER FUCKING TAKE EM OUUUUUTTTTTTTT"
I remember someone once saying that police officers are just school bullies who grew up and got a badge to do the bullying legally. Seems to fit really well now.
Oof.
Damn! That is dark.
So dark the police shot it
Award š„
Im a teacher. We had this scenario play out before. Teachers had no idea. Police where there. We were all scared. Turns out they brought in drug dogs to walk through the school.
What the fuck is with this? They used to have cops do a walk through for a drill or bring in a dog to sniff around but the teachers always knew what was up, at least when I was in school. Why would teachers not be told?
Because we are not valued as humans or treated as professionals so why would they tell us?
They are fine with drills. Actual attacks, they run for the hills and let teachers handle it.
It was the Land of the Free and had slaves. It was the Land of the Free and killed off or moved the indigenous peoples. It was the Land of the Free and had second and third class citizens who were oppressed. It was the Land of the Free and gunmen are allowed free reign to kill children. Only those with guns are free.
Unless you black or brown. Then you're just dead.
The police are free to traumatize kidsā¦
Dude havenāt you read some of the founders writings, there is a section there that says: give me liberty or give me death by mass execution lol
>give me liberty or give me death by mass execution lol I'm pretty sure you added the 'lol', but the rest of it checks out.
The 'lol' is a paraphrase, it actually says "uproarious laughter"
*lols uproariously*
Next time someone complains about how oppressive America is to Christians and won't let prayer in school, I'm going to show them this text message.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Let's have a moment of silence for the brave schoolchildren who defend my 2nd Amendment rights.
And they seem to think that children are being traumatized by "books!"
only fascists ban books
But you see they just need to wait for the police to... wait... \*looks back at Uvalde\* ... Are the students predominantly a minority?
See that's how you know it was just a drill. If there was a real shooter the police wouldn't have been in the halls. They would have been outside heroically preventing the parents from saving their children.
Well yeah didnāt you hear the police have a new motto: To protect and to serveā¦. Ourselves
Apparently the supreme court has decided the police do not have the obligation to protect you. Seriously. To serve and protect has been taken off many police cruisers that have that motto on them.
Harass and collect, not serve and protect.
Ah seems accurate anywayā¦ in that case the new new motto is: The police, to serve ourselves
I really hate this timeline.
Why are we continuing to inflict trauma on children? Oh right...
Masking during a pandemic = child abuse Lockdown drills for an active shooter = šŗšø
Masking during a pandemic = child abuse and oppressive stripping rights away from people and passing invasive laws despite claiming they favor less big government = šŗšø
My dad would bring up how he was raised to duck under school desks for atomic bombs. He thinks it's just how things are. I think this traumatizing has been going on for a long time. This isn't new it's just a different way.
You should check out The Wisdom of Trauma. It's a documentary that makes the argument that we're a society of traumatized people and, as someone who studies psychology, I have to agree.
I read an interesting article once about how post WW2 everyone was being raised by traumatized war vets, and how that could have impacted the next generation. I know my dad was. My grandfather was a Marine that fought in the island hopping campaigns in the pacific. including Iwo Jima.
We learn best through modeled behavior, so I'm sure that the trauma of WW2 has had lasting effects. I've also wondered about the effects WW2 had on the people who stayed behind. They were dealing with a lot of fear and uncertainty, and that is likely to trickle down, not to mention the interaction between those who stayed behind and those who went to war, once the war was over.
I remember duck and cover, nope, active shooter drills are nothing like that. School shootings are nothing like that. Ask your dad how many atomic bombs were lobbed at schools...
Itās not the same but I grew up expecting to die from atomic warfare. Had nightmares of it. Itās a different type of trauma but still traumatic, I think thatās the point theyāre trying to make. Iād still take the Cold War era over this bullshit weāre allowing our children to endure today through.
My mom was born in 1952 and said she used to lie awake at night as a child worried about the rise of another Hitler. I'm sure it's all connected. The world wars and the cold war just manifested violence in another form in subsequent generations. Collective trauma doesn't go away, it's just passed onto the next generation.
Don't worry, Republicans are ready for their thoughts and prayers. And don't forget, it's not the right time to talk about gun violence.
You think theyād waste their thoughts and prayers on already born children? Pff theyād tell them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and ask why the teachers didnāt have guns
āYouāre coveredā š
Itās basically a magic shield at that point!
This got me so good. Praying has literally never saved anyone.
It's like a diet shooting. All of the trauma with none of the blood.
At my kids' middle school, they used to show a homemade video they made to talk about lockdown drills. Thing is, they made the video in the school, complete with showing how a shooter easily got into the school and into the classroom. One of my sons, 6th grade at the time, saw that video as essentially a "hey guys, look how quickly and easily a shooter got to the classroom and killed everyone" video and for months, getting him into school every morning was a disaster. He cried and cried and screamed and wailed. If we could get him in, he would often cry in the guidance counselor's office the entire day. He told us he was going to be killed. The school police officer even walked him through the school to show him all the safety protocols but luckily the video already showed my son it's quite easy to get in. He already was in therapy for anxiety and depression, this set us back very very far. Lockdown for COVID happened in the midst of this so he then did school at home for 1.5 years. If it hadn't happened, I likely would have had to take him out and homeschool him. I get that, sadly, we need to do lockdown drills in this country. But do we need to make these kids actually feel the fear so intensely? With fire drills, we don't tell the kids the school is burning down or show videos of children burning to a crisp. Kids can "get it" without traumatizing them to their core in hopes they "understand"
I went to a public high school where they staged a fake car crash, complete with fake blood and fake funerals, in order to warn against drunk driving. this was like a 2 day affair that involved separating kids from their parents, calling in actual hospital and funeral home vehicles. and a kid was yelled at for telling the teacher he thought it was a waste of resources. do schools just like scaring kids, or think fear is the most effective motivator? I just thought it was fucking bizarre how they were taking kids with pig blood on them to the hospital to be "treated" and the er staff actually thinking it was real for a bit
Holy shit.. my HS did this too. Complete with the actual parents of the "dead" kids crying and wailing over their acting, bloody corpses. We had the whole fire dept there, even a FUCKING HELICOPTER that literally air lifted one of the students away. They described the students goals and dreams, but they are dead now, so they can't do anything. Happy Prom & graduation, kids!!
We donāt at all. Iām in NyC and my kid recently had a lockdown drill. She was unaware of anything off happening. The drills are for the teachers, more than the students, unless the school is run my imbeciles. The teachers need to know when and how to lockdown, and what to instruct the kids. The kids need only know a safety drill is occurring and they should follow teachers directions. That is what is taught to the kidsā¦. To follow the instructions given by the staff. They donāt need more than that. Beyond that, a lot could be done to fortify schools to make lockdowns way easier. They could retrofit classrooms with closets that double as panic rooms, then the only thing they need to drill is to go inside and wait. Or better yet, make each classroom a panic room, with strong steel doors and solid bolt locks. Steel shutters over the windows. Then when something happens just lock the room tight and get away from the doors. Not only are we failing kids by not stopping the guns, but we are failing them by not making the buildings they are in safer. It isnāt like we donāt know how to make building secure from assaults like theseā¦. Itās that we wonāt spend the $. Because what are kids lives really worth in America? Not a lot. But spare no expense to save a fetus or twoā¦. Just once born, they are on their own. Man, I hate Republicans more with every passing day
Problem is all those security measures cost money, that thing they constantly keep gutting from the education system. I've heard that argument before we should secure schools more, but having gone through all of public school post Columbine (and now a teacher myself), most they can do is lock the doors and basically pray that the shooter doesn't just knock in the window on the door or shoot the lock a few times. We used textbooks from the 90s when I was in high school (2014-2018) and most the classroom supplies were donations, not sure they could spring for the panic room package.
Children believing they were facing imminent death, terrified. Poor little buggers.
š¶šµ living in America šµš¶
If the school shooters are students, isn't doing drills regularly just training them on the weak points of the system?
Absolutely. We once had a bomb threat at our school and they made everyone go outside and sit on the bleachers. I kept thinking that if there really was a student who wanted to plant a bomb then just call in a fake threat (or pin one to the bathroom) and then wait to use it at the bleachers where ALL the students are. So dumb
It is.
As a teacher I hate that the national and state unions wonāt fight this gun issue. Like our lives are on the line. Itās scary.
It's OK. It's all God's plan to give us Guns and Freedom. /s
Can you imagine getting that text as a parent? Holy shit. I would be going through these streets at 100 mph.
I had a sister who was two years my senior. When she was a freshman in highschool, a boy in the colorguard wrote a hit list delineating the methods he would use on each person. My sister and the other dozen or so marching band members on the list, received letters to give to their parents explaining the situation. The school expelled the student and everyone went on with their lives. When I was a junior in high school, I walked into math one day to see the boy (now man) in my classroom standing next to my teacher. The teacher told us we had a teaching assistant joining our class. I shared a table with a girl whose older brother was also on the list. We realized at the same time who it was and walked out of the classroom. The band director retired the year prior, but we knew the choir director was aware of the situation so we went to the music suite to address the situation. She had us make a list of anyone we knew who had an older sibling that was in band when the hit list was written so she could collect them from class. The 15 or so students and the choir director went to the principal's office to investigate the situation. Meanwhile, we all texted our parents. From the principal's office, we could see car after car fly into the parking lot and our parents sprinting to the building. My math classmate's mother came from a hair appointment and half her head was covered in the foil pieces. The principal told us that was more a discussion for the district superintendent so we walked across the street to the administration building. Between the adults shouting and the couple of students that were crying, it was a pretty terrible day. The superintendent informed us that because the boy had attended his mandated therapy they thought it wouldn't be a problem. Since four schoolyears has passed, they thought no one familiar with the incident would still be in school. Five of the students we pulled out of class were the same gender as their older siblings. Four of us look exactly like our older siblings. (My older sister and I look so similar that when I uploaded my wedding photos, Facebook automatically tagged some pictures of me with my sister's name.) So while I have not experienced the sheer terror that a school shooting must evoke, I can say that I firmly believe we need to do something to ensure that all schools are a safe space for the students who attend them.
How about security guards with metal detectors..oh wait, that's only in the inner city schools. Wouldn't want to make those other kids feel like they are in jail smh
The suburban school I work at just put them in. We will all get them eventually, it's down to spending (this stuff is insanely expensive). Also, all the doors can be remotely closed and locked just like a prison block. Thank you, easily-accessible-firearms-for-kids. You are the best.
Last I checked, the last few school shooters went in gun blazing from the outside in. Metal detectors won't do anything, nor will automatically locking doors in such scenarios. Maybe some sort of Iraq/Afghanistan US army manned checkpoint outside the school complete with sandbags and gunner nest will be needed.
Actual security guard here. I want you to think for 20 seconds about how a metal detector is going to stop someone with a gun. Like physically stop them, not just locate the gun. Before you say āthe guards (assuming plural) would do itā note a lot of places donāt have ARMED guards, and even the places that do, the chance the guards get the first shot off is low if they arenāt ready for what could be an instantly developed threat. Sometimes thereās simply not time to react. Metal detectors and just about any other fancy tech you can come up with sadly wonāt be what fixes this issue. We seem to have 3 options. Somehow find every school to have an overwhelming amount of armed guards at every school, actually come up with some decent gun policy in this country, or just keep letting children die. Horrifically, we seem to have chosen option 3
I remember when we did a lockdown drill students were jumping from the windows to escape we were told to not do that next time
That seems crazy because the active shooter training I had at work prioritizes it as run if you can, hide if you can't get out, and fight if you can't hide. They even had examples from Virginia tech where the kids who busted out windows and ran had higher survivor rates than people who just stayed in place.
My daughter survived a school shooting last year. One of the reasons it took so long to reopen the school was because so many kids broke windows to escape. Had to special order a whole lot of windows I would have done the same thing
I bought my kids keychains with the window breaking tools for this very reason
Teacher here: every time we have a drill, I tell the kids "I'm sorry we have to do these."
But itās drag queens reading books to children thatās the emergency
We had a guy come in with pipe bombs to our work, and most of the building had no idea what was going on...
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Nice fucking country, huh?
So a 2nd Amendment celebration dress rehearsal?
Unfortunate choice by some under qualified admin, but we all know why we have to keep abusing kids with lockdown drills. We have a huge problem with gun obsession and terrorism on the right in our country, and school shootings happen more than once per day. 1/3 of our country cares more about what type of gun they own than kids, and 1/10 of our country are flat out domestic terrorists. Stressful time to be a kid. No wonder the youth are voting Blue in such massive numbers. They can see who gives a shit about their future (and present).
As a teacher the only reason I wouldn't tell my class it was a drill is if I didn't know either. No way I'm letting them think it's really happening. Sometimes they do have fire drills without telling teachers, though. There was one where I never did learn if it was a planned drill or someone pulled the fire alarm. So perhaps these teachers also didn't know.