The phone call I always feared

[B.D. Turner]

The phone rang this morning about 9am I picked it up and my daughter said "Is momma there" I called my wife to the phone and when she picked up there was no one on the phone. A second later it rang again. I could hear my wife asking "whats wrong?" then silence. My wife came into the living room crying telling me that the school is on lock down and that my daughter could only wisper on her cell phone and was very afraid. My first response was to pray and pray hard that the Lord would put a shield of protection around my child. I called the sheriff's office on a non emergency line and asked what was going on. The bank across the street from the school had been robbed and the gunmen were on the loose. My daughter called back a while later and said everything was ok and they were back in class.
At what point would you go to the school to get your child out? Would you even attempt to get to your child? Would you being there be more problem than help?

 

[Fred Fuller]

The people to ask those questions to are the school authorities. Would they have let you onto school grounds? Would they let your child leave with you?

lpl/nc

 

[Edgeofthewoods]

Wow good to hear everything is allright. TOugh choice. FOr the most part unless if there is a specific threat AT the school , I would let things ride. They would be safer there. But then it would be situation dpendent. The big question for me would be HOW to get them out if I had to. Something I need to think on.

Chuck

We did have a lockdown a couple of yeas ago. A bear broke in to the cafeteria and decided to have lunch after the kids. Put som eexcitement in the day. !!

 

[Trebor]

If the school is "locked down" the doors are going to be locked and you aren't going to be able to go in to get your kid. If there is an incident *at* the school, the police are going to have it cordoned off and you aren't going to be able to go in and get your kid.

Personally, if I had a kid in school, I'd instruct them to do whatever it takes to stay safe in an emergency. There is a time to follow instructions and there is a time to break the rules. The problem is it does require individual judgement and without knowing exactly what is going on it is possible to make a wrong decision and think your doing the right thing.

If the incident is *outside* the school, a lock down makes sense.

However, if there is a shooter *in* the school, hiding in the classrooms and hoping he won't come in makes no sense. I'd instruct my kid to find the best way out that hopefully takes him away from the shooter and not to stop running until he's well away from the school. Not just across the street, but several hundred yards away from school property, at the minimum. Drop and leave everything behind, except the cell phone or wallet/purse, and go. Contact you so you know their safe and then you would be responsible for somehow contacting the school/authorities so your child isn't regarded as missing when they do the head count later.

 

[B.D. Turner]

Many of the officers we have in our county schools are either fat lazy deputies who couldn't work the road or about to retire. I believe our children should be treated better and that officers working school should have at least three years of SWAT and or advanced tactical training. This would give the officer working the skills needed to be a first responder to a live shooting incident.

 

[Geno]

Make a Plan

First, I am glad all worked out!

When I was a H.S. principal, our policy was if there is a lock-down, nobody was allowed to enter except emergency personnel. Everyone was to stay back, and let the police secure the area. If a parent did manage to get through, they were to wait at the entrance and a school employee would escort the child to the parent. The parent’s ID had to authenticated first of course. You NEVER let a parent or anyone in to go personally to get their child, because frankly, you don’t know who may have gone off the deep end and be involved.

For bomb threats, we evacuated and called parents to come get their children from the busses some blocks away. Know your policy before it happens, not after.

Would I try to get closer? Try to keep me away. I would sit in the closest parking lot with my cellular telephone and wait for the all-clear. By the way, we all should have such plans for our family/school developed. We live in ugly times. If you don’t currently have a family/school plan in place…make one (a plan that is). Although, I am not adverse to making new children either. Ask your school if they have a plan.

Doc2005

 

[MrDig]

What a blessing your worst fears were not realized!! I am glad you and yours are safe.

 

[Gocart]

I agree with the advice to coach your child to react agressively rather than passively if an attack does occur in her room.

 

[ilbob]

Many of the officers we have in our county schools are either fat lazy deputies who couldn't work the road or about to retire. I believe our children should be treated better and that officers working school should have at least three years of SWAT and or advanced tactical training. This would give the officer working the skills needed to be a first responder to a live shooting incident.

School cops are at best an effort to make parents feel their children are safe. Most places can't afford to have a cop in every school anyway.

I support locking the doors all the time to make it harder for unauthorized persons to enter. It is not a perfect solution, but it is better than nothing.

I recall a story not long ago in the local rag where the school superintendent was asked how they make sure only authorized visitors enter the school. He actual said that they keep out unauthorized visitors by requiring them to come to the office AFTER they enter the building.

OTOH, children are generally safer at school than at home.

 

[Car Knocker]

I believe our children should be treated better and that officers working school should have at least three years of SWAT and or advanced tactical training. This would give the officer working the skills needed to be a first responder to a live shooting incident.

Have you proposed this to the power-that-be in your county? What was their response?

 

[mbt2001]

Glad to hear things were OK.

Not happy to hear that .gov and the media have terrorized our kids to such an extent that all of them are carrying around an insane fear that terrorists, grown up nut jobs, teacher nut jobs, school mate nut jobs, bird flu, ebola, aids and every other freaking threat known to man is going to go to a school and do something terrible.

Frankly, I don't know how kids cope.

Go along, pay your taxes, there is nothing to see here....

EDIT:

Find out what the SHTF plans are for the school. You may need to work around those. If the SHTF are you going to have to go and get your kids? I dunno. Perhaps you can head that off now, by looking at the plan and doing something through the PTA...

SWAT cops in school?? no way, they would assualt everyone. SWAT is a lark. It is one of those things THAT SEEMS like a good idea, but only rarely is a good idea.

 

[LkWinnipesaukee]

OTOH, children are generally safer at school than at home.

Bolshevik.

 

[B.D. Turner]

SWAT cops in school?? no way, they would assualt everyone. SWAT is a lark. It is one of those things THAT SEEMS like a good idea, but only rarely is a good idea.

If a person walks into a school and starts shooting I want the best trained best equipped in shape officer the department has.

 

[bogie]

Doc, what purpose does "lockdown" have? The way I see it, it just guarantees easy victims. Personally, I'm in favor of the "bugout" method.

As for requiring safety personnel to be SWATers... 1) We don't need that many SWAT troops... er... officers... 2) Wouldn't have to worry about it if a percentage of teachers/faculty would take responsiblity, carry.

My nightmare scenario is a few Islamic nutjobs entering a grade school, and going from locked-down room to locked-down room, while the police cordon off the area and prepare to try to reason with 'em...

 

[FXR]

I have two kids in the local public school. They had a lockdown last year; when that happened, they not only locked the doors but closed off all access streets to traffic (police, fire/rescue excepted). So all the parents wanting to get to their kids created a massive traffic jam and plenty of heated arguments with the police blocking the intersections. Nobody got within a half-mile of the school.

Yeah, I know -- let the trained professionals handle it, but There's gotta be a better way.

 

[TimboKhan]

At the school I teach at, the classroom doors automatically lock when closed. The side doors do the same, and are electronically monitored to insure they aren't jammed open. At any given time, there is one door unlocked, and that is the main and only entrance.

If we locked down, there is literally no one but Weld County Sheriff deputies coming through our doors, period. One of the first things I learned about the school was the lockdown and code word procedure, and it was made clear to me that opening a door during a lockdown would get me in extreme amounts of trouble, up to and including litigation, although I don't know what basis they would have.

 

[B.D. Turner]

There is a plan in place in NC school for officers responding to an active shooter incident. This would eleminate waiting for a swat team to arrive as has been the problem with some school shootings in the past. The school officer along with the first two arriving officers would make entry and hunt down the shooter/s and stop the problem. This is being taught and without telling too much in detail of how it works the plans are already implemented to deal with this type of event.

 

[crofrog]

Doc, what purpose does "lockdown" have? The way I see it, it just guarantees easy victims. Personally, I'm in favor of the "bugout" method.

Well in this case they child bugging out. Would be walking into a situation that is more dangerous with an armed bank robber on the loose.

while the police cordon off the area and prepare to try to reason with 'em...

This won't happen any more. Those day's ended with Columbine.

 

[mp510]

At what point would you go to the school to get your child out? Would you even attempt to get to your child? Would you being there be more problem than help?

Around here, they don't let you have your kid back under those circumstances, even if the school has already ben dismissed, regardless of the reason. Nobody into the building, nobody out.

Want your parental rights? Screw you. (That's their mentality)

 

[silverlance]

A bit from the perspective of school personnel. I am a high school teacher and an off-track high school dean. We coordinate security with the school police and city police.

You should talk to your school's personnel (there will probably be a town meeting now) and ask them to explain their procedures for dealing with civil alerts.

Make sure your school has good solid doors that nobody can kick down. Make sure all windows are secured with steel grates and have interior blinds. Make sure that your kids know what to do if someone actually gets in (that's something you have to decide with your kids). Make sure the school has a good functional phone system and that the fire alarms work.

If your school lacks any of these, it's time to have a talk with the admins or the district.

 

[langenc]

Lockdown is the knee jerk reaction to some threat. You could imagine the principal on the stand after a pointed question "what did you do after you knew....?" To have to answer "we went on as usual" will result in millions being paid out-unless you are in Illanoy according to ilbob where the schools are safer than homes... I guess that is cause no one carries in Illanoy.

 

[TimboKhan]

Lockdown is the knee jerk reaction to some threat

Well, whats your answer to what a school should do in the face of a threat? I disagree that it's a "knee-jerk reaction", in large part because of the nature of the beast. What do you think a principal should do if they are alerted by police? Let anywhere from 1 to 2500 kids, who don't have a great concept of danger and security, run pell-mell out of the school? Let every kid leave under the watch of a parent, despite the fact that in a large school it is just about impossible to account for the identities of all those people with anything even remotely resembling accuracy and efficiency? Would you just let the school stay open and hope for the best?

B.D. Turner said that the reason his daughters school was locked down was because

The bank across the street from the school had been robbed and the gunmen were on the loose

I am sorry if you disagree, but that is a perfectly valid reason to lock the school down. Now, you can argue that it might have been wise to let the kids who had phones call out, and to a certain degree I can understand that argument. Unfortunately, I think what you would end up with is a whole mess of freaked out and scared parents (and rightfully so) trying desperately to get information, which results in nothing more than a massive disruption that diverts resources away from where they need to be.

Here is an example. B. D. said he called the police, which is a perfectly logical thing to do after getting a call from his little girl, who sounded scared. Imagine that her school has 1000 students, and then imagine that maybe half of the kids called home in a similar fashion. That results in 500 parental calls to the police and/or school, a certain number of parents showing up at the school, and a lot of unneeded hysteria. If nothing else, it jams up phone lines that could be put to much better use, and in a worst case scenario, it gets someone killed.

The real problem here is that schools shoulder an ungodly amount of responsibility for your kids when they are at school or on a school activity. When I taught at a school larger than the one I am at now, I had anywhere from 35 to 45 kids at any given time that were directly under my supervision. Of those kids, there are special needs kids, english language learners, emotionally disturbed kids, "normal" kids, and so on. In an emergency situation, I must control this widely disparate group as a whole. Bluntly put, that means that I don't particularly care what your opinion is of how I should act in regards to your individual kid. My concern is the welfare of the class, period. Fact is, if something bad goes down and I get my class (or, from a different perspective, your kids) through it safely, you can scream at me all you want. I will sleep soundly at night knowing that while your angry at some injustice (real or percieved), your kid is safe.

The fact is that parental rights are ignored in some situations, and I believe rightfully so. In fact, there is even a legal term for it, "in loco parentus". There are plenty of "loopholes" to that concept, but suffice it to say the school makes plenty of decisions about your kids without your consent and without consulting your wishes. Heck, just the pure logistics of figuring out what the parents of 1000 kids would want done in a fashion acceptable to most in an emergency situation is impossible, let alone the implementation of those wishes. The simple fact is that if an armed robber is roaming around outside the school, they are going to lock down and ignore your pleas to come inside. It's not a function of some sort of Orwellian desire for control as much as it is concern for your kids safety. Unfortunately, our society has evolved such that litigation is also a concern. In any event, the school is going to manage the situation as best it sees fit, and in every school, particularly the large ones, it boils down to an "all or nothing" point of view. By that I mean that all the kids stay in one place where they can be supervised (and, if need be, protected to the best of the teachers ability), or none of them do.

 

[Jeff White]

bogie said;

Doc, what purpose does "lockdown" have? The way I see it, it just guarantees easy victims. Personally, I'm in favor of the "bugout" method.

The lock down response keeps the responding officers from having to wade through panic stirken kids who are all dressed similarly while looking for the shooters. It also canalizes the shooter (s) and hopefully restricts his/her movement. Response to an active shooter situation will be much different then what went on at Columbine.

Your proposed solution, bugout is going to be an uncontrolled mess. It's going to possibly give the shooter access to more victims and a crowd to possibly hide in to escape or take hostages from. It's best to contain the situation as much as possible. Locked doors do that.

My nightmare scenario is a few Islamic nutjobs entering a grade school, and going from locked-down room to locked-down room, while the police cordon off the area and prepare to try to reason with 'em...

A Belsan type takeover would overwhelm the resources of any police department to include our largest. You aren't going to protect a school from that scenario with less then a rifle platoon, in place and manning defensive positions before the attack. Some of our larger schools that are laid out like college campuses would require a company sized force or larger. We both know that our society will not expend those kinds of resources.

If you're talking about one or two home grown Islamofacists from the local mosque, then standard active shooter protocols would work and the lock down would be the best policy.

These plans were not thought up by wimpy, non violent, quiche eating, West Wing watching, surrender monkeys...They were written by the armed professionals who will respond to the situation and coordinated with the schools.

Jeff

 

[bogie]

Well, we know that some of the nutjobs have trained in school-like scenarios.

It still seems awfully stupid to sit in one place, and wait for Abduhl to break open the door and shoot everyone, toss in a satchel charge, whatever. And it isn't all that hard to break open a door, even one of the super-duper "hardened" ones...

I'd much rather that the reaction plan have teachers/faculty who are able to respond immediately, while evacuating the potential hostages. Just curious - did we compare our plans to Israel's? They've got experience...

As for police successfully responding - seems like most of the "school shooting" cases that have come up, where it wasn't just some Ritalin/Prozac junkie waving around a bb gun, have been resolved by teachers/students who grabbed the shooter, or who retrieved firearms from vehicles and shot the guy. The "lockdown" thing seems to me to have been thought out by someone who said "Hey, we want a lot of witnesses to interview, so we better keep everyone on-site."

 

[Jim K]

It is hard to say it, but in a bad situation, LE will be doing their best to keep everyone safe. The last thing they need is a bunch of trigger happy parents running around trying to "rescue" their children and shooting at everyone and everything in sight.

Jim