Does your child's school have lock down drills?

[EasterJoy]

Actually, they do. If adults are cornered by a gunman, the current advice from law enforcement is to attack the adult by simultaneously throwing whatever objects are available and possibly tackling them. I’m not trying to imply that police encourage adults to hunt out bad guys and fight them on their own. This is only when they are cornered by someone who is an immediate threat.

That sounds like a very sensible plan. Like schools, the police continually evolve their thinking about what they ought to teach non-professionals to do in all sorts of emergencies.

I think that people, students included, often feel more confident if they are given the sense that they can prepare for awful situations. Very small children cannot do this, because they typically don’t have a very good ability to adjust their concern about a possible situation to how likely it is that it will happen. Older children, however, benefit from being given the sense that they can do something positive if they keep their head and act in a smart way when confronted with a scary situation.

 

[Kay_Cee]

I was in our parish hall for a women’s group when the school (including the hall) went into lockdown due to an unsavory character in the area.

When we had the terrorist attack here in San Bernardino, the nearby school where my daughter teaches went into lockdown.

Yes, it’s a sad commentary on our society. On the other hand, I remember drop drills because we were told we could be nuked at any time.

 

[starlady88]

My Catholic high school did a lock down drill only once that I remember. I always thought we should have done them more. We were in the science room and I just remember shutting off the lights and being told to sit quietly in the corner of the room, against the wall and out of sight.

Probably the reason for not doing them so frequently is because it was a rural area. Just fewer threats in general. I do remember once, though, that there was some sort of threat of a student with a gun or explosive device at a school in a neighboring town (not like the city…in the country, anything within a 50 mile radius is considered “neighboring” ). I don’t remember details of the threat, but we did have to call our parents and they had to come to the school personally to pick us up.

After the shooting at the nightclub in Orlando, though, everyone at my workplace (I work for the diocese) had to go through a training about what to do in the event of a shooter entering the building.

 

[skigirl1689]

In high school we had lockdowns…some were for the police to search for drugs with the drug dogs, but it was a good time to practice for a hostile intruder. When I was in 6th grade, first year they had that class in the high school building, we had 4 or 5 bomb threats in one semester. That was pretty terrifying.

One of my parents works at the school, and last year the staff went through active-shooter training, even having a sheriff’s deputy pose as the shooter. My parent learned a lot. I think it was very wise to do the training, even though we live in a very rural area.

 

[Giggly_Giraffe]

I’m not sure what you mean by “attack a bad guy.” The police don’t even tell the general population of adults to do that

The other problem is the architecture of the individual school. Some are set up with barriers to keep adults from furtively entering the grounds that would prevent anyone who actually belongs at the school from fleeing the campus by any route other than by the front exits. You can get to a part of the playground that is far from a fire, but you cannot get off-campus without gate keys.

“Alice Training” is a controversial approach being offered to schools and businesses. businessinsider.com/teachers-students-alice-fight-defend-school-mass-shooters

The thought of Sandy Hook always makes me sick and I’m all for wanting to know how to make a shooter slow down. I’m always on alert at the school. I wish it were different … lord have mercy.