Recently, my 8-year-old daughter calmly described how she and her classmates were trained to hide from a potential intruder in her school.
“We lock the doors, stay away from the windows and keep quiet until the policeman comes,” she said, failing to see how freaked out her father was about this conversation.
Few things are as disturbing parents as the thought of their children’s schools under siege. The horrifying images from Columbine, Sandy Hook, Platte Canyon and Arapahoe High immediately leap to mind.
Sure, it’s a good thing for children to learn what to do in case the unthinkable happens. But it is difficult not to lament the times we live in now — an era when children must practice being silent in locked classrooms, out of sight of crazed gunmen.
“If it does put a lump in your throat, then that means you are a good parent and you care about your kids,” said Kenneth Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services, which evaluates school security and emergency plans.
But drills don’t have to be scary, Trump said. Frankly, if the training is done right, kids and teachers aren’t scared, he said. His own child told him that a lockdown drill was like “hide-and-seek in the dark.”
“That told me the teacher did the drill in a very balanced way and explained it to the children in a non-scary way,” he said.
Trump said lockdowns should accomplish one goal: Buy more time for law enforcement to arrive.
“Keep it simple,” he said. “Lock the classroom door first. We know from high-profile incidents, people in locked classrooms survive. Move kids out of the way of windows and doors. And the most important thing to do is to teach the kids the importance of being quiet.”
Shooters will go to where they can do the most damage in the shortest amount of time, he said. They will seek unlocked doors and follow noise to find people.
Trump said after the December 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., where 20 first-graders and six adult staffers were shot to death by a madman who killed himself, people lost it. Routine security measures went out the window.
Nationally, people sought to arm teachers. A Wisconsin district had children bringing soup cans to school to store in their desks in case they needed to hurl them at intruders.
A parent in Aurora told me he gave his children ketchup packages to smear on their clothes in case they needed to play dead during an attack.
“After Sandy Hook, the mantra has been to do something, do anything, and do it now,” Trump said. “The question I get all the time is, are we traumatizing children? If it is properly done, you won’t traumatize children.”
Colorado’s General Assembly in 2008 passed a law requiring schools to develop emergency response plans, including exercises in addition to fire drills.
John McDonald, executive director of safety for Jefferson County Schools, said the district has honed its security procedures over the past eight years. Lockdown training now starts as early as preschool.
“If we start them at 3 to 4 years old, by the time they are 9 or 10 they will be rock stars,” he said. “For years we have taught our kids to drop and roll if you are on fire. But what do you do when you are under fire? Locks, lights, and out of sight.”
McDonald said survey results of Jeffco students have found that 89 percent of high schoolers report feeling safe in their school today, as opposed to 67 percent in 2008.
“I believe it was direct … communication in drills,” he said. “We are here to make you feel safe. We have to do this because this is the threat of our times. I don’t see it changing. What I do see changing is kids having a greater opportunity to be safe in their schools.”
For that, I am thankful. But I would much rather live in a world where my children didn’t have to learn how to hide from the bogeyman at school.
E-mail Jeremy Meyer at jpmeyer@denverpost.com. Follow him on Twitter: @JPMeyerDPost
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