School Lockdown

[jashobeam]

One potential problem with Lockdown drills

If, as in the case with Columbine, the shooters are students of the school, they will know full well exactly where all the 'targets' are crouched. As Box O' Truth has demonstrated, sheetrock walls are not good bullet-stoppers.

That being said, if I was an HS student and heard shooting, I would prefer a locked classroom to the outdoors.

As others have said, there is no one solution for all potential problems. Lockdown appears to solve the most problems and eliminate the most variables.

 

[akodo]

here's my question about this 'lockdown'

Who is it going to fool? Any kid on a rampage will know that the classrooms only APPEAR empty, and will act accordingly.

A crazy man bent on killing children, MAYBE he will be fooled, but maybe he will be able to think 'hey, the kids don't just disapear into thin air'

Now, if there are numerous people actively fleeing, then yea, glance into a room, see no-one because they are hiding = move to next room. that makes sense. But this whole 'everybody has disappeared' isn't going to fool anyone.

And the problem with crazy people is in some ways they use logic, in others they do not, or use their own specific brand of logic. You cannot count on them being stupid. Sure, they may think the God is talking through their dog, but they were able to drive a car to the scene without getting arrested or in a traffic accident...

 

[BEARMAN]

There must be a law about locking children in a building that may cause them to be gathered up and shot or just burnt to death after the tear gas canister catches the test papers on fire. There are major fines and wrong full death charges layed on club owners that lock back exit doors to prevent people letting in unpaid patrons and exceeding their capacity limits. If 2000 kids were screaming and running out of a building any nut in the way or not moving is going to get trampled.

 

[Manedwolf]

GullyFoyle?

Hey, great username! Alfred Bester's "The Stars My Destination" is a must-read. Nailed the cyberpunk genre back in 1956.

 

[LawDog]

If 2000 kids were screaming and running out of a building any nut in the way or not moving is going to get trampled.

Like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were trampled?

Like Thomas Solomon was trampled?

Like Robert Steinhaeuser was trampled?

LawDog

 

[Gifted]

As Box O' Truth has demonstrated, sheetrock walls are not good bullet-stoppers.

My schools(all three, not just high) had concrete block walls. Some partitions and add-ons had sheetrock, but 99% was concrete block. When building a building like a school, block is more economically viable, so I'm curious about your comment. You have a school that's not masonry?

 

[50.]

It would be eazy to keep the doors unlocked and bundle the kids up and, when the attacker walks in the room........the teacher is hiding around the corner whith a shotgun and, BLAM problem solved.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

There must be a law about locking children in a building that may cause them to be gathered up and shot or just burnt to death after the tear gas canister catches the test papers on fire. There are major fines and wrong full death charges layed on club owners that lock back exit doors to prevent people letting in unpaid patrons and exceeding their capacity limits. If 2000 kids were screaming and running out of a building any nut in the way or not moving is going to get trampled.

I already explained that the classroom doors are NOT locked from the classroom side, the locks only secure the corridor side. From the classroom side they can always be opened, even when the outside knob is locked.

 

[GruntII]

I know you mean well, but I think you are absolutely, 100% wrong.

First, you should not instruct your kids to disobey teachers. This instills a disrespect for authority. (Not that authority needs to be respected at all times, but disrespect should be reserved for authorities who act like dictators.) If you have a problem with the school's policy, you should address it head-on with the superintendent and the board of education rather than teach your kids that it's okay to break rules they don't happen to agree with.

Secondly, that last place a kid should be if there's a gunman running loose in the school is out in the corridor playing moving target. Lockdown means LOCKdown. The doors to the classrooms are locked. Yes, a shooter can shoot through the doors. But if he can't open the doors, he can't see what he's shooting at.

IMHO, as a member of a profession (other than education) that regularly deals with school security issues, I believe on balance your kids will be safer locked in a classroom than out in the hall hoping they don't meet the shooter(s) before they make it out the door. (And then hope there aren't other shooters outside watching the doors -- don't forget that other school shooting where the kid pulled a false alarm, then shot the kids as they exited the school.)

I don't buy it. all a lock down does is sequester the kids in nice little killing zones for either an active shooter or a terrorist. To quote Monty Python's Flying Circus "Run, Run Away". My niece,nephew,and sister ,students and school employee respectively have been told to get free and clear ASAP. Also if need be because they don't get out we are prepared to extract them. This is not just for active shooters but any type of situation where the family may choose to bug out or fort up and the school has went into lock down mode. The kids and my sister come out nicely if possible but they come out. Recently after re reading Terror at Beslan this was reinforced. My town has a bunch of Bozo's on the PD who aren't ready for a hardcore gangbanger more or less a terrorist situation.Many of you will be critical of this stance so be it you do what works for you but I know many people some with inside knowledge some just tuned in citizens who have the same policy. The school is not worried about the childern's safety they are worried about liability and appearing to have done something. If the schools was serious about security they would have armed security and teachers, and wouldn't be gun free kill zones.

 

[dfaugh]

Thank you LawDog

once again for explaining my point, much more clearly than I managed to do!

 

[Maxwell]

Like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were trampled?

Like Thomas Solomon was trampled?

Like Robert Steinhaeuser was trampled?

Well, I would prefer to look at it as "In what way can we reduce the number of potential losses". Would you believe its possible to have a school shooting in a place with unarmed staff and NOT have anyone get killed?

What would be the lowball figure for casualties when everything goes right?

You got a shooter, maybe more than one, running loose in a school. Because none of the staff are armed, they've got free range for however long it takes the police to get there. Nevermind the fact he could have a bomb or start a fire.

Even with lockdown kids can get trapped in the hall. Then theres the risk of officers entering the building and shooting the wrong person or getting injured themselves. Finally of course, theres the shooters that will probly have to be put down.

Say we start with 10 as an "acceptable" number of injuries/deaths from attempting to recover this situation.

If you lose less than 10 in the evacuation effort (run/scream past them, or avoid the shooter entirely by using alternate paths to the outside) wouldnt that be better than having a nutcase stumble on a room with 20 trapped kids?

 

[TexasRifleman]

While I've enjoyed reading all the tactics in this thread, they don't address the REAL purpose of these lockdown exercises.

These are not to protect the children.

These practices only exist to give a false sense of security to the sheeple and soccer moms. Nothing more.

If they were genuinely concerned they would allow the teachers and adminstrators to be armed and offer some real chance of protecting the classroom.

 

[Boxerrider]

situations

There are lots of reasons for locking down. During most of them you are not going to be better off running away. We did it this week because a student had a seizure in the hallway a few minutes before lunch. I'm dealing with her, contacting EMS and the school nurse. I don't need anyone running through the hall.

As posted earlier when bad things happen time and information are precious. The number of types of possible emergencies is endless. The most important thing is buying time so you can decide what needs to be done. Shooter outside or in one of the other buildings? I'm staying in my room with it's concrete block walls and steel door. Shooter in my building? Our doors are locked all of the time, fire-safe knobs. Bullet-proof? Not completely. There's a small reinforced glass window that could be broken through to reach in and open the door. Whatever pokes through there meets me. Yes, I would feel a lot better with my Colt instead of my metal stool, but the path to my students goes through me regardless.

Dictator? Yes, I am. A kind and generous one whenever possible.

 

[LawDog]

If they were genuinely concerned they would allow the teachers and adminstrators to be armed and offer some real chance of protecting the classroom.

I don't know about you, but I'm always armed. Having, or not having, a firearm doesn't have a thing to do with it.

And it perturbs me greatly to see a culture developing that has decided that the only way to protect yourself is with a firearm.

A critter spends ten minutes breaking into a locked classroom. Should we beat him to death with a computer when he enters?

NO! We don't have firearms, so we're not armed.

A stiff dose of Lysol in the kisser, followed by a beat-down with desk legs?

NO! They won't let us have firearms, so we're helpless.

Kip Kunkel got treated to a hands-on demonstration of the 'ground-and-pound' technique. Be a whole heck of a lot less school shootings if people would quit deciding that a lack of a firearm makes them helpless, and do something.

YES, I am irritated by the fact that folks can't carry on school property. I am MORE irritated by the mindset that had decided that without a firearm, people are helpless.

You can't carry on school property. This is a Bad Thing. This is an infringment on your Second Amendment Rights. Now, improvise, adapt and bloody well overcome.

LawDog

 

[the 22 junkie]

+ 1 LawDog

 

[GruntII]

LD It's about instilling an attitude of dependance and helplessness in the up coming generations. My locals have a policy of not releasing students during a lock down to parents or family.It's about how the current society creates victim zones by restricting access and ability to have non improvised tools to protect oursleves and loved ones.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Releasing students to parents during a lockdown?

How the **** is that going to work? The whole idea of a lockdown is to reduce the number of available targets and to give the first responders a clear area in which to operate. It would be bad enough to allow students to move around in this environment. Now you want to bring parents into it? AFAIK during any situation that would call for a lockdown, parents would not even be allowed onto the school property, and might not be allowed within a quarter mile perimeter around the school property.

Talk about a Chinese fire drill! (Apologies to any readers of Chinese ethnicity, I'm just using an expression often used to convey the notion of total chaos.)

 

[Maxwell]

And it perturbs me greatly to see a culture developing that has decided that the only way to protect yourself is with a firearm.

When you ask someone to do a job you give them the tools to do it, or your inviting failure.

What you suggest is that giving a teacher a gun may not be the most realistic way to solve this problem.
Then you ask the 50 year old schoolmarm to simply engage in melee combat with a much younger, armed, agressor.

That might not work out so well.


Yes you can use common household items to defend yourself, but you can do the job much better with a purpose made tool.

If your doing lockdown you reinforce the door, up the number of security cameras, and build alternate exite routes.

I say you should also provide teachers with an armed option reguardless. So if that critter starts to use a crowbar on the door, you can blast through it with a 12 gauge instead of attempting to ambush your gunman with your wireless keyboard.

 

[Grey54956]

School lockdowns are not necessarily a bad idea, but there is a significant risk if this is the only option that the school has. If your only response to a school shooting situation is the lockdown, then a shooter or group of shooters is going to be able to plan around that plan. If they are looking to maximize casualties, they will know exactly how to do it.

The problem is that schools do not offer multiple responses to threat scenarios. While lockdown may be good in some situations, evacuation may be necessary in others.

Unfortunately, schools are not usually constructed with this in mind. If so, you would see schools where the school rooms have secondary exits, emergency corridors, and lockable hall gates.

The last time I was in a school, I saw that short of windows, there was only one point of entry into a school room. If the shooter is in the building, the safest place is outside...

 

[Larry Ashcraft]

These practices only exist to give a false sense of security to the sheeple and soccer moms. Nothing more.

I disagree. My daughter is a second grade teacher and I believe she would stop at nothing to defend the twenty little charges she is given every day. Nothing!

I guarantee.

 

[Euclidean]

So much here I agree with and don't...

Look, I've taken a map of my building and my room and looked at it. There is not a quick enough evacuation route. It's not in the cards.

My school is designed to be a school not a fortress. There are lots of blind corners... yes I know slice the pie but try doing that with 20-40 of your charges in tow.

Now if I were in one of the science labs with the windows on the external wall, I'd have those kids out of there and off campus if I thought I could get away with it. But I can't do that, I'm right in the middle of the building.

Look, if I lock my door, which is solid core, reinforced glass, deadbolted, and can't be credit carded (I've had some of my "darling angel" students try, and you can't tell me they don't know how), I have effectively locked those kids inside a concrete box.

That's way better than trying to lead them to safety around blind corners. I don't mind risking my own stupid self to go out there and use my key to drop the security barriers to prevent intruders from passing into my hall, but I'm not taking them out there with me so they too can get shot.

FWIW every teacher in the hall is free to request the key to drop the security barrier and only 3 of us in the hall have one. I don't think most people think about it.

Look, I'm aware strategy and tactics like using the fact that I can pass through several rooms with my keys and I know the layout of the building (such as the hidden roof access), I could have a slight strategic advantage, but the problem is I'm not equipped at my job in order to deal with a shooter. I can be the most tactical guy in the world, but if Joe Terrorist is letting loose with a 12 gauge, my Spyderco just ain't gonna cut it no matter how smart I think I am.

My best weapon is the building itself. I simply lack the option to make a meaningful effort to neutralize the threat.

The other problem here is, I personally am willing to do this. Now the thing is I don't know a lot of instructors who wouldn't step in front of a muzzle to put one more thing between the shooter and the kids... but I do know a lot of instructors who just don't want to think about something so awful happening. I know even more who would freak out at the thought of actually trying to take the threat down.

I personally have not developed a plan to take the threat down beyond the contigency that the shooting starts in my room and there's no time to do anything but go for it.

I realize objectively that the odds of this situation happening are poor indeed, but I also realize I couldn't live with myself if I didn't TRY to do SOMETHING to prepare for it, and if it did happen I'd have to DO something or I'd never forgive myself for not trying.

To live each day of your life knowing you abandoned the most sacred of duties... what kind of life is that?

As for teacher CCW, I have mulled over it many times.

At first I realized how much I get touched/examined and wondered if it was viable.

However I soon came to realize regardless of whether or not I perceived it was safe, it was my classroom and I am a human being the last time I checked. I deserve the dignity to decide that for myself regardless of my decision. I am the one who has to live with the consequences.

After having more personal CCW experience, I believe I could successfully CCW in a classroom. I'd have to invest in a different gun, but I would. I'd also practice concealment and the like with a blue gun before I actually tried it with a live weapon.

I have a valid certification to teach and a to carry a concealed weapon. I figure I'm as good a candidate as anybody to work out all the kinks. And honestly, if it were a matter of getting some kind of certification or training to CCW in the classroom, I would get it at my own expense.

This model is the only one that will work because it's voluntary and free to the taxpayers. The only other viable strategy is teachers have service weapons like IRS agents or something. You aren't going to get school teachers to carry service weapons at all grade levels across the board for a plethora of reasons.

What we're doing now obviously isn't working at any rate.

 

[geekWithA.45]

Jury's out for me.

After reading the thread, I can see _some_ utility to lockdown in _some_ "normal" circumstances.

It would have played right into the bad guys hands in Beslan, or an attack by any group who's read the Al-Q manual.

In Beslan, the kids who lived are the kids who ran, ran fast, and ran early. Similiarly, the Al-Q strategy calls for rapid forceful consolodation of power, followed by a horror show.

http://feveredrants.blogspot.com/2002_08_25_feveredrants_archive.html#85382919

 

[Euclidean]

We can be defeatists all day long.

 

[cracked butt]

My best weapon is the building itself.

That's pretty well said. I think if you distill the situation down, TIME is the weapon that is initially in the shooter's favor, if you put TIME back in your favor by getting the targets inside a reinforced box, the shooter loses.

 

[akodo]

lockdown regarding a medical emergency in the hallway.

Seems to me while there is a reasonable desire to limit hallway traffic in such an incident, why a lockdown? Why hid kids from view? Besides, kids can still get in the hallway if they want, as the door is only locked to people in the corridor. To me, this is akin to deciding to let school out 2 hours early because a storm is comming by pulling the fire alarm.

Lawdog, don't you think the 10 minutes you theoretically have would be better invested in getting students out the window rather than create weapons from classroom objects?

Euclidean makes a good argument, but this is because he is actively thinking, addressing the situation, and seems willing to make change based on what is going on around him. Not all schools are of the same layout and with security doors, or in rooms without 1st or 2nd floor windows. The scenario he plays out, yes, HE would make the right decision regarding many threats to lock the door go out flip the barrier himself, then return to class. However, this is entirely different from the simple doors with big windows that I see in most every school I enter. It seems to me each teacher should be required to assess their specific room or rooms, physical condition, age of students, etc, and decide a specific plan. This plan may well be 'hide in the corner' but in case of windows, or being the classroom right next to the main door, it may well be, check, give all clear, flee quietly.