Lockdowns at School

Many schools have gone through real and practice lockdowns since several tragic events at schools, but a lot more thought about the effectiveness of this process needs to be reviewed. I have been through many bomb threats, lock downs, disaster drills, and even real dangers while I was a teacher in the school system. In every case things went wrong and some could have led to serious consequences.

Lock Down 1: I was teaching a high school class and there was a lock down announcement. Our classroom was fortunately in a self contained building with only two official entry and exit doors. There were of course many windows and several emergency doors. It was possible to lock this unit up fairly well and to lock each individual classroom. This would seem to be relatively ideal, but even this proved difficult. Immediately students wanted to use their cell phones and even teachers wanted to use them. No additional information was provided by the office which did not help in fact no other came from the office for over 30 minutes. Some students had been trapped outside as the lockdown was initiated. These students may have been late to class or returning from the media center etc. There was no clear procedure of how to handle this, but the first thought is to let the student in from outside to keep them safe. Absolutely no thought seemed to be given that the student could be the problem, even though unlikely. Even when the class bell rang, it was a minute, before we had an official announcement to stay in our present location - although all the teachers had not let any children go without approval from the office. After an hour and a half, the lunch bell rang. Some students were hungry and of course we kept them. We finally received word that a robbery had occurred near the school and the police were still looking for the robbers. We ended the lock down after 2 hours. In the middle of all this students were also getting cell phone calls, parents were arriving to pick up students for doctor appointments, students were returning from field trips etc. The range of problems to handle was substantial.

Bomb Threat 1: For some time there was a bomb threat every week and the typical procedure was to announce a code 32 over the intercom. Since everyone knows what the code number means it seems a bit odd to use a code number. Just prior to the announcement, officials at the school are supposed to check out the area around the stadium, then all the students are moved from their classrooms to the stadium. They have assigned locations, but many end up in the wrong location. Teachers usually are required to check roll, but this is not an easy task in this location. Teachers write down who they have missing and will report these names later. There is a lot of student not accounted for at this point. The stadium is hot and very uncomfortable. All the students are now out in the open and possibly in more danger than they were before. After even just 30 minutes, there are students that need to use the rest room and many could use some cool water to drink. Absolutely no preparation is in place to get students to rest rooms or to get them water and they have no protection from the sun and heat. Depending on the time of day, they may also start to get hungry. Cell phones again become a problem. Fights can occur and a great deal of stress is place on everyone.

Sudden Intruder 1: One day I heard a lot of yelling in the hall downstairs, then loud barking from a dog. I rushed downstairs but saw nothing but found out that police had just chased a person through the building with a police dog. They ran in one door and out another so quickly, there was no time for a lockdown or any announcement. I was concerned that a stray dog, might have entered the building and a student may be in trouble. The point here is that we were not prepared to handle this situation and it may be impossible to properly prepare for such situations.

Tornado Drill 1: One day all teachers were told we would have a tornado drill at a specific time of the day. Just prior to the drill a good student requested to go to the nurse to take medication she was required and permitted to take. I told her politely that I could not send her at that time, but would send her as soon as possible. About a minute later the tornado drill started and we all moved into the inside section of the building. Students were told to sit on the floor. Many students would not completely comply, they did kneel down. The student that wanted to go to the nurse started to complain again and the drill took longer than most. She actually had her parent come in a directly confront me about this issue. It was resolved by the assistant principal, but not to the satisfaction of the parent. There is a problem that is exposed by this situation however, that we may have situations that require medical assistance during a crisis of any kind.

After 9/11 my classroom and all others received a package of tape and plastic sheets. This was supposed to be used to cover the windows in the event of a biological attack in the area. There was absolutely no training on what to do and no evidence that this could be effective. Teachers put it into their file cabinets, probably never to see the light of day again. After years of being in the file cabinet, the tape itself may become useless.

Essentially all these examples show that we really are only superficially prepared and that we go through potentially ineffective and potentially dangerous procedures calling it safety. How then can we properly prepare? We need to learn from such situations and effectively modify our procedures. If we look at just a few of these situations and consider some solutions we might get a better concept of what we can actually do to protect our children.

1. If students are going to be moved to the stadium the areas where a class must meet needs to be clearly marked. If students actually went out with their class to that location for specific "short practice" events which were not emergencies, they would learn their assigned location. A specific location should be designated of "lost", "late", "out of place" students. All students should be trained to go to this location if they have a problem getting to the proper location. Some kind of sun protection might be able to be provided, but something safer than tons of umbrellas, which can be a safety problem by themselves. Large quantities of bottled can be kept ready and rotated as needed. A large quantity of snacks can also be kept available that need to be rotated to keep them fresh. If a number of portable toilet houses were available at the stadium, then students could of course use them. These could be kept locked until such situations and check right after being unlocked. One teacher or administrator could stay in the location where these toilets are located and monitor their use and check them occasionally. Better communication systems would help between the stadium and the main office and other departments. An official nursing station could be established in the stadium area.

2. In lock downs a lot of preparation could improve the process. Better and more frequent communication would help. Procedures should be reviewed and adjusted as needed. It is important to have plans for extended lockdowns. Movies, games, special assignments etc. can fill the time and reduce stress. Contact with the nurse could become vital especially for students that may require medication that is already at the nurse's office.

3. The process of handing out plastic sheets and tape could be a total waste of money and effort. I appreciate the fact that some thought went into this, but it would not be possible to actually cover the windows completely, but we might have been able to cover the lower third of the windows. We did not have a ladder in the room or even in the building, so there would be no way to reach the upper window sections. Some rooms still had windows that would open at the bottom and the top of the window. No plan was discussed about how to handle the air conditioning, which under the "plastic" plan would still let the air conditioning operate moving air from outside through the classrooms (possibly contaminated air).

A school is a very large and complex facility and much more planning would be required to effectively plan. The type of planning that we now do is so basic that it is probably only at the lowest level of preparedness. We can do and should do better.