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[soco]

Definitely follow up.

However, be careful not to fall into the trap about something being too specific for an X year old to make up. Kids have a habit of both repeating bit of pieces of things they've heard and joining it with other details. As you press them, they'll make more details up. My nephew, even at like 3 would make up these oddly specific stories about all manner of things. The more you talked to him, the more detailed the stories would get.

Part of what makes them especially odd are their ability to integrate, sometimes almost verbatim, fragments of things they've heard other people say.

 

[Sakura]

Those of you who have had lockdown drills, what exactly are they 'drilling'? aren't lockdowns for schools just the doors being locked and school is continued as normal?


Since I have no new info to go on until tomorrow I'd kind of like to talk about the idea that school shootings are so common we need children drilling for them. Some statistics:

Total schools in the 2009-2010 school year (link): 98,817
2010-2015 school shootings (wikipedia): 104
2007-2011 average yearly pre-school through grade 12 fires (link): 4090 (per year average)

this is why I don't believe its worth spreading fear to children about school shootings. They are one of the worst problems we have and need to be dealt with but not by instilling fear.



see above.

I don't think it is about instilling fear, but about teaching kids what to do in those kinds of situations...
I had to do earthquake drills in school.
How many kids in the US have died in school from earthquakes in the last decade vs kids who have been killed by shooters...?

 

[Netherscourge]

Well, they used to do Nuclear drills back in the 60's - not that hiding under a desk would save you from a nuclear explosion.

Better safe than sorry.

 

[way more]

I genuinely LOL'ed. Yes I'm really trying to not be that guy.

I would like to say I have no inherent problem with a lockdown drill, I have a problem with a shooter in the school drill. if they need to do a drill to make sure doors get locked because a robbery suspect is nearby or whatever I dont think thats crazy. If they are making children hide under desks while a mock gunman roams the halls, that's fucking insane.

Ok. The mock gunman does sound a bit dramatic.

 

[Darren870]

Those of you who have had lockdown drills, what exactly are they 'drilling'? aren't lockdowns for schools just the doors being locked and school is continued as normal?


Since I have no new info to go on until tomorrow I'd kind of like to talk about the idea that school shootings are so common we need children drilling for them. Some statistics:

Total schools in the 2009-2010 school year (link): 98,817
2010-2015 school shootings (wikipedia): 104
2007-2011 average yearly pre-school through grade 12 fires (link): 4090 (per year average)

this is why I don't believe its worth spreading fear to children about school shootings. They are one of the worst problems we have and need to be dealt with but not by instilling fear.



see above.

Lockdowns were basically just hiding in the corner, locking the door and shutting the lights off. Kids near the windows would be instructed to draw the blinds while the teacher locked the door. It wasn't only for school shootings in my school district, they even said it was more likely a domestic issue then a school shooting issue.

If I recall correctly we had a yellow and a red. Yellow might have been a domestic issue like a parent trying to "steal" their kid. Where a red was an active issue. I could be wrong as this was 15+ years ago. I am 30.

While I somewhat agree with you, and probably thought the same thing growing up. Where I grew up in NY this kind of stuff didn't happen. Columbine was so far away and that kind of things never happened here. However, we were being told to do lock downs, likely because of it. Then Sandy Hook happened and that was only 25 mins away from where I grew up. It hit closer to home.

Sure the statistics are low, but just like with any drill its about being prepared.

 

[dakini]

I remember doing these in both elementary school and middle school. They were called "Code Red" drills. Basically we turned off the lights, locked the doors, and we all had to sit on the wall with the door into the classroom so that way if someone were to look into the room it would appear empty.

 

[bengraven]

I asked my wife is my son has been doing these and she shrugged, "probably". She graduated in 2004, though, well post-Columbine, so it was common to her.

But thinking of my little 7 year old practicing playing hide and seek from a deranged killer puts a lump in my throat.


It's also scary to think that one or more of these kids doing these drills today are going to shoot up their school in the future and know that an empty room is probably not an actual empty room and will shoot the locks off...

 

[Nappuccino]

While they should have told the parents about these drills, I have no problem with these drills being performed. Better safe than sorry if something actually happens.

The actor seems to be a bit much, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was something the other parent's child imagined during the drill. I can see a kid thinking that having an actor with a gun would be reasonable, even if no such thing happened.

 

[CrocMother]

Some doors but not all, and not all schools have those capabilities. Even rooms that do, you're taking a big risk of locking the shooter in the room with you by doing lockdowns. I'm not saying they can't work by any means, but in stressful situations people will fall back to what they've been taught. Active shooter situations don't only occur in schools. Malls, movie theaters, churches, banks, etc. These are places that hiding may not be an option, so that's why getting out to safety is stressed as the first option.

The lockdown drill isn't really for active shooters inside the school the more I think about it.

In fact, the lock down drill is really designed for when you know the shooter isn't inside and want to make sure they can't get in. When I was in high school, we actually a lockdowns that wasn't a drill.

A girl at the school's mother was found shot at her house and the father (the presumed shooter) was missing. The police that he might go for the daughter so the whole school locked down.

So maybe they should do a lockdown drill and an active shooter drill.

 

[Blood Diamonds]

We did these in High School. Under the Teacher's desk wasn't a thing though, it was usually the corner of the classroom away from the windows and the doors. The teachers would cover any windows, etc. There was never a gunman dressed up though..wth

geez what is this world coming to, lol. Gonna have to get a transgender whose father was mixed hispanic/white and whose mother was mixed black/asian just to make sure nobody gets offended.

this is the dumbest shit i've read today lmao like??? what a joke

 

[HeySeuss]

Kind of sounds like the drills are counter-productive then. If there was actually a shooter and I was a teacher, it sounds like I should start pushing kids out the first floor window if I can and just telling them to run.

However, that strategy sounds like a logistical nightmare to practice as a drill when you are dealing with young children.

Active shooter situations last 6-10 minutes, which correlates to the police response time. Getting them out windows is actually something that is taught as a way out if its possible. These kids aren't going to keep running and get lost, they'll be taught a meeting place of where to go and wait for help.

Its not the logistical nightmare you think, but I see where you're coming from.


Edit: you're right about the outside threats like dangers nearby that aren't likely to impact the school but they lockdown as a precaution. I wasn't thinking about those. I'm sure some schools do both.

 

[fester]

Parent- Why is my son dead? Why did you teach him to hide and make himself a sitting target?

School- ....

Give me a fucking break. You clearly have no appreciation for the logistics of organizing large groups of children.

 

[bengraven]

geez what is this world coming to, lol. Gonna have to get a transgender whose father was mixed hispanic/white and whose mother was mixed black/asian just to make sure nobody gets offended.

Are you serious or fucking kidding me right now?

 

[demolitio]

Give me a fucking break. You clearly have no appreciation for the logistics of organizing large groups of children.

You should have seen my school lead 800+ kids to the gym due to a bomb threat. They performed miracles now that I think about it.

 

[Infernostew]

I remember doing these in elementary school and that was even before Columbine happened. I remember we continued doing them all the way up to high school and I've been out of HS almost 10 years now. Same type of drill. Lock the doors, turn off the lights and hide before a desk or a corner of the room not visible from doors or windows. Maybe be a thing done by school districts here in the US but I just assumed everyone did this.

 

[Mailbox]

Throughout my entire schooling from k-12 we only did a gunman drill once. In my Grade 11 year. I'm pretty sure it was only because the district realized that they never gave us a code red drill so they wanted us to at least understand what to do (even if it was rather late). Everyone I knew was surprised that we even had a drill for that sort of thing.

Then again, since I'm not in the states I have to take that into account.
So I'll just say that I'm not against drills of this kind, so long as they aren't frequent like fire drills (which NEED to be frequent).

There being an actor is bizarre though. Seems like taking it a little too far.

 

[RagnarokX]

I'm 30 and we did this in high school. It may be incredibly unlikely to happen but it doesn't hurt to be prepared. I mean, I live in California and in elementary school we did earthquake drills. The area of California I live in hasn't had an earthquake strong enough to need to hide under your desk in like all of recorded history.

My highschool's lockdown drills were kinda dumb, though, since all of the classrooms had like waist to ceiling windows down an entire wall.

 

[Kyzer]

Um we had code red and code blue drills when I was in school. Idk about the actor in camo but a drill wouldn't be out of the question

 

[rbanke]

I'll come back to this thread tomorrow. Thanks for giving me another viewpoint on this. I still think/hope the 'bad guy' walking around is a misunderstanding and after reading some of the replies I think that is the core point I take issue with. There is some truth to wanting to keep your children innocent as long as you can and this feels like a wearing down of that innocence.

 

[HeySeuss]

Give me a fucking break. You clearly have no appreciation for the logistics of organizing large groups of children.

Its quite easy to teach kids with repetition, which is the whole point. You severely underestimate children's capabilities to learn these concepts.

 

[fester]

Well, they used to do Nuclear drills back in the 60's - not that hiding under a desk would save you from a nuclear explosion.

Better safe than sorry.

How do we know these drills result in any significant increase in safety? Seems almost entirely pointless to me - kids vs guns is no contest. If all we end up doing is raising a generation of kids to be trained to live in fear, I fail to see how we've gained anything.

Like you said, "duck and cover" drills in the 60's we're pointless. Let's make sure what we're doing is actually effective rather than parading out the security theater.

 

[Shamrock7r]

I'll come back to this thread tomorrow. Thanks for giving me another viewpoint on this. I still think/hope the 'bad guy' walking around is a misunderstanding and after reading some of the replies I think that is the core point I take issue with. There is some truth to wanting to keep your children innocent as long as you can and this feels like a wearing down of that innocence.

I can honestly see that as a teacher foolishly/clumsily saying that to the class thinking it will help them understand the purpose of the drill better, rather than there being an actual actor going around.

 

[Mostmanlyman]

I think that OP should talk to the principal and then report back to us if there was an actor roaming the halls.
Right now the info we have is from a 5 year girl that then was written by her father. It would be better to have a more clean facts.

 

[Blood Diamonds]

How do we know these drills result in any significant increase in safety? Seems almost entirely pointless to me - kids vs guns is no contest. If all we end up doing is raising a generation of kids to be trained to live in fear, I fail to see how we've gained anything.

Like you said, "duck and cover" drills in the 60's we're pointless. Let's make sure what we're doing is actually effective rather than parading out the security theater.

yes, let's give the kids guns

 

[foxtrot3d]

I'm 38 and the only drills we did in school were fire drills. I had no idea lockdown drills were even a thing. I have a big problem with (for lack of a better work) 'culture of fear'. If the school wants to put the classroom in a hiding spot while a 'bad guy' walks the halls looking for them then I want to know and opt out.

Not to create a big argument here but how is having a drill for a very likely scenario creating a culture of fear? We had these drills at school back when I went, often times these would happen when an incident was occurring in the surrounding area so the school would go into "lock-down." The point of a drill is so that students know what to do and where to go if a real life situation occurs.

 

[fester]

Its quite easy to teach kids with repetition, which is the whole point. You severely underestimate children's capabilities to learn these concepts.

Spoken like someone who hasn't taught a day of 2nd graders in his/her life.

 

[way more]

Well, they used to do Nuclear drills back in the 60's - not that hiding under a desk would save you from a nuclear explosion.

Better safe than sorry.

I dont' know. Duck and Cover doesn't seem so crazy in the list of things they told the public about nuclear protection. For one thing there certainly are people for whom the duck and cover method would save.

Sure, all those in the circles are toast even if they hide under a solid oak desk, but on the periphery they have to worry about shockwaves, debris falling from the sky, windows being blown out and glass flying everywhere. Yes, the idea that you could survive a blast by obeying the teacher is silly but it would help some children who weren't instantly incinerated.

It's not all out idiocy like The House in the Middle which says if you mow your lawn you stand a better chance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGJcwaUWNZg

 

[Dr.Acula]

Getting them outside away from the shooter because the shooter is inside looking for victims.

Virginia Tech necessitated a re-evaluation on lockdown drills. Cho trained with the knowledge that people would huddle together and stay low. That's why his killed number was so high, people did exactly what he expected them to.

During the Columbine shooting over 800 students got out of the building to safety. 8 of those that got out came back inside and were killed. Getting outside increases you chances of survival exponentially. I teach active shooter training for a local college in my jurisdiction.

Most updated training like ALICE, or other similar models use the "outs" method. Run, hide, fight, etc. Hiding should be your second choice but only if it's not safe to get out of the building.

Anders Behring Breivik shot most of his victims in open air and was actually unable to enter the island school house where people barricaded themselves.

Like you say, very organised shooters will take advantage of, and exploit procedures.

The other thing to consider is that this is a grade school, and organising a mass exodus of 12yo and under kids (especially kindergarteners) might be too complex to drill properly. If asking kids to "duck and cover" is something you can do quickly and easily, then do it. You can tell high school kids to find the nearest exit and book it, and if it turns out there was no danger, that's fine. What happens if you tell an 8yo kid to run for an exit and flee the premises? If they get hit by a car you're screwed from a liability standpoint.

 

[platakul]

Lockdown drills are standard in all public schools. It isn't just active shooters on campus, but also in incidents where there is an armed robbery nearby or a shooting nearby, kids are locked in, so they don't ditch/wander off/ end up in the middle of a shoot out or taken hostage.

Evacuation drills also happen in case of bomb threats. Threats are somewhat common obviously as pranks.

Shootings can and will happen, and not just like Sandy Hook or whatever, but a kid bringing a gun on campus to kill himself or kill someone else.

Its probably more likely than a real ass fire

e: mock gunman sounds like bullshit. Although police have done actual drills at schools to simulate a live fire situation, but typically this would be done on a Saturday or something with volunteer "victims"

 

[Mostmanlyman]

Its quite easy to teach kids with repetition, which is the whole point. You severely underestimate children's capabilities to learn these concepts.

So let's say there is a high school with 2,500 kids in it. Where are they all suppose to go, just run away, that is a lot of students to keep track of.
I agree with you that there needs to be changes to the system.

 

[fester]

yes, let's give the kids guns

Not sure if satire or trying to prop up a strawman because no one here proposed such a ridiculous argument. The choices aren't just between duck & cover or handing out guns.

 

[fester]

Shootings can and will happen

Says someone from the only country in the world where shootings can and will happen with any frequency?

 

[cpp_is_king]

Are you serious or fucking kidding me right now?

I felt the same way that someone even wondered what the ethnicity of the actor was in the first place. How is it that even a thought that enters someones mind? It was almost certainly just a random school administrator who volunteered to do it.

 

[Prinz Eugn]

Good luck jumping out of the non-existent windows most of the classrooms in my high school had.

 

[CambriaRising]

This sounds like a drill we had to do in middle school (called a "L.E.A.P." drill, I forget what it stands for), but basically we had to hide under a desk, or in a corner where windows couldn't see, turn the lights off, teacher locked the door, and stay quiet. They didn't do anything like a guy in camoflauge though, that's fucked up.

They did have this weird thing though where the drill would be where the principle would say "There is a red Ford Edzil (really shitty Ford car that flopped) in the parking lot, you need to move your car", and that would queue the drill.

Yeah I remember these in elementary/middle school in response to Columbine.

 

[JoseLopez]

I did lockdowns in hs

 

[EMT0]

I'd worry only if your kid was literally under the teacher's desk and he was the only one there.

 

[noquarter]

Those of you who have had lockdown drills, what exactly are they 'drilling'? aren't lockdowns for schools just the doors being locked and school is continued as normal?


Since I have no new info to go on until tomorrow I'd kind of like to talk about the idea that school shootings are so common we need children drilling for them. Some statistics:

Total schools in the 2009-2010 school year (link): 98,817
2010-2015 school shootings (wikipedia): 104
2007-2011 average yearly pre-school through grade 12 fires (link): 4090 (per year average)

this is why I don't believe its worth spreading fear to children about school shootings. They are one of the worst problems we have and need to be dealt with but not by instilling fear.



see above.

How is this instilling fear in children? Through practicing these drills they will probably be a lot more calm if they are in the situation. I understand your desire to want to know more but opting out seems silly.

In California we used to run earthquake drills. Always seemed really silly, but about once a month we would all get under the desks and grab the legs. Never really understood why, but always complied. Then one day we had an earthquake and everyone did exactly what we were supposed to, got under the desks and held the legs. No one was afraid or panicked, just protected ourselves like we were taught.

In Colorado for high school we would occasionally run tornado drills, finding something to get under and waiting, almost the same thing. Never had to actually perform this one but I really think it would have calmed me down if a tornado was coming to the school, would have had to think about the drill and would have felt comfortable about it.

Also, not to sound too much like an ass, but you really should get in the habit of asking your kid about his day. Just make it seem natural so that if something changes you have a baseline. He might not like it now, but will get used to it and you will have an easier time if things start going south. My daughter hated me asking about her day every day 'Dad, nothing happened, it was just school.' I kept asking though and didn't stop when that was the answer and now she knows what to tell me. If she starts to say something different or gets upset I have a queue to dig deeper and see what actually happened. One day it was just a boy picking on her at lunch, but we had a talk about when to go to teachers.

If you don't want to, I get it but it won't get any easier. Just something to think about.

 

[Satch]

this thread reminds me that, in my elementary school, our classrooms didnt have "doors." they were set up like giant cubicles i guess? so from the hallway you would just walk into one classroom, and then next to the classroom you would walk into the other and so on and there werent doors between them at all

i dont remember if we did active shooter drills, and if we did i dont remember what they were even like, but it makes me question what we would have been asked to do, because in that school, if you walked through the front door then you could just go straight into the hallways with no locked doors between you and shoot up everybody, and there wasnt really any "hiding" for us

 

[Darth Karja]

Back when I was in school we had a drill once where the swat team (with their rifles out) came and went through the school like there was someone there. They had an actor as well. We had to lock ourselves in the classroom and were not allowed out. If you were out when it started you had to go to the bears classroom or lock the bathroom and hide in there. They let us know the week it would happen. This was about 10 years ago.

 

[erawsd]

How is this instilling fear in children? Through practicing these drugs they will probably be a lot more calm if they are in the situation. I understand your desire to want to know more but opting out seems silly.

In California we used to run earthquake drills. Always seemed really silly, but about once a month we would all get under the desks and grab the legs. Never really understood why, but always complied. They one day we had an earthquake and everyone did exactly what we were supposed to, got under the desks and held the legs. No one was afraid or panicked, just protected ourselves like we were taught.

In Colorado for high school we would occasionally run tornado drills, finding something to get under and waiting, almost three same thing. Never had to actually perform this one but I really think it would have calmed me fresh if a tornado was coming to the school, would have had to think about the still and would have felt comfortable about it.

Also, not to sound too much like an ass, but you really should get in the habit of asking your kid about his day. Just make it seem natural so that if something changes you have a baseline. He might not like it now, but will get used to it and you will have an easier time if things start going south. My daughter hated me asking about her day every day 'Dad, nothing happened, it was just school.' I kept asking though and putting when that was the answer and now she knows what to tell me. If she starts to say something different or gets upset I have a queue to dig deeper and see what actually happened. One day it was just a boy picking on her at lunch, but we had a talk about when to go to teachers.

If you don't want to, I get it but it won't get any easier. Just something to think about.

So true...




I also agree with everything else. We use to have these drills and it wasnt a big deal. The principal would come over the intercom, announce that we were on lockdown, and everyone would just move away from the doors and windows for 5minutes until she got back on with the "all clear".

 

[cpp_is_king]

How is this instilling fear in children? Through practicing these drugs they will probably be a lot more calm if they are in the situation. I understand your desire to want to know more but opting out seems silly.

Telling a 6 year old "Hey this is just in case someone comes into the school shooting all the kids" is, umm... a little scary? What do you mean how does it instill fear?

All kids know about fires. They watch cartoons with firemen in them, see videos of fires on TV, it's normal. Kids can understand fire. You can light a match and show it to them, explain it to them. A guy coming into school murdering kids randomly is a completely different level, it's not even remotely the same.

 

[Oreoleo]

I... don't see the problem?

I was in 7th grade in '99 (Columbine) and I'm pretty sure we did something similar. All hid along the wall next to the door with the lights off so anyone looking in would think the classroom was empty. Didn't have an "actor" walk around the school but I'm fairly certain the principal or someone went around and looked inside the classrooms.

Telling a 6 year old "Hey this is just in case someone comes into the school shooting all the kids" is, umm... a little scary? What do you mean how does it instill fear?

This is stretching it man. The email in the OP mentions a "bad guy," nothing more. Absolutely no different than parents teaching kids about stranger danger.

 

[cpp_is_king]

This is stretching it man. The email in the OP mentions a "bad guy," nothing more. Absolutely no different than parents teaching kids about stranger danger.

Maybe you're right, I just assumed that there was some discussion with the kids about what kind of danger the bad guy presented.

 

[noquarter]

Telling a 6 year old "Hey this is just in case someone comes into the school shooting all the kids" is, umm... a little scary? What do you mean how does it instill fear?

The purpose isn't to instill fear, it is to prepare for a scenario. Do fire drills instill fear? They don't have to even tell the children it is for anything, just get them to follow orders and go to safety. It is sad that they need to be practiced but hopefully they learn something and won't be as afraid in the real event and will be safer for it.

Edit: See you edited in a response to my question before I posted it. You're right that they see fire everywhere and might have a better understanding of it, but they still don't understand that the smoke is more than likely what would kill them or cause them a problem, they just go outside. The did are there so that children have an understanding of what to do when something happens. Keeps them a little more calm than the unknown would I'd they didn't run them. It also lets officials and principals have an idea of where ask the students should be so that they can easily plan around that.

Children, especially now have just as much of a chance to see about a school shooting on TV as they do about a random fire it seems, these are things that should be takes to with them so they understand that parents and teachers have their best interests in mind if a scenario like that ever arises. Through taking about it and discussing it it' should help alleviate many fears that would normally be there and allow them to understand how to protect themselves.

If the school really did have a person playing the role of 'shooter' I would agree that they are going about the drill wrong, and that is getting too close to simulating a traumatic experience (unless they were also teaching the kids some take down moves or something) but the drill itself is not the problem, just pieces of being implemented.

 

[Alucrid]

shelter in place drills aren't anything unusual...having an actor dressed up in camo is going too far though

 

[SolarMystic]

With all the school shootings that occur in America these days, I'm surprised why anyone would be opposed to lock-down drills.

Not to mention, schools go into real lock down mode whenever a shooter is within a certain distance of a school.

 

[Azuran]

The actor part is just weird and a little fucked up. If I was you I would certainly call the school and ask about that.

 

[shoreu]

I asked my wife is my son has been doing these and she shrugged, "probably". She graduated in 2004, though, well post-Columbine, so it was common to her.

But thinking of my little 7 year old practicing playing hide and seek from a deranged killer puts a lump in my throat.


It's also scary to think that one or more of these kids doing these drills today are going to shoot up their school in the future and know that an empty room is probably not an actual empty room and will shoot the locks off...

I did "code red" every year in grade school. I think it's important to have these drills.

 

[diablos991]

shelter in place drills aren't anything unusual...having an actor dressed up in camo is going too far though

I agree.
The school should be practicing these drills at least yearly. The check could be an administrator familiar to the students (counselor, principal, or vice principal) going through the halls and checking the doors. That administrator needs to be dressed normally and recognizable by the students as a non-threat.

Having a drill raises tensions with the students a bit. Seeing some random dude in camo wandering around may make the students believe the "drill" is a ruse and something more sinister is going on.