Question for Parents and Educators...

[BigmanPigman]

Does your school have an emergency procedure for what to do if students are not inside a classroom if there is an active shooter or your school site? Ask your district and site principal.

The school shooting today occurred while students were outside of their classrooms and there was no procedure for them to get to safety and protect themselves.

At my elementary school we had a procedure for this for students and staff. This includes school hallways, areas outside before, after and during school and recess time, lunch time, parking lots, etc.

[Igel]

1. Yup.

If an intruder alert is called, the first thing I'm to do is to head to the hall. Any student between the doors to the left and right of my room is to go into my room. (If they say that they're on an errand, I can't stop the kid but I can tell him that the announcement was there's a guy with a gun.)

I don't need to ask. We get trained on this once, maybe twice a year. At the start of the school year there's a 20-minute training that we impose on the kids during advisory period. We review this every few months.

Nobody is authorized to look for the intruder or stand his/her ground. "Run, hide, fight" is the slogan. If you're cornered, then you fight. The one point they waffle on is if there's a bunch of students running to safety and they need something to distract the gunman. Then they say the primary goal we should have is helping the kids get to safety--and that might mean doing something otherwise foolish and dangerous, but that's going to be up to our discretion.

I'm nowhere near the cafeteria or gyms, so I don't know procedures there.


The last year or two we've had reverse evacuation drills. In the event of a certain signal on the outside PA system, there are procedures to corral and rush all the students back into the building, and then to designated 'safe' areas (which just means areas that can be secured reasonably well.)

[BigmanPigman]

2. That is great...run, hide, fight!

It sounds like your school has figured out the best solutions for the worst of situations. I have noticed that when students are serious and scared they actually listen to teacher more than they normally do. Hopefully you won't have to experience this scenario first hand.