Active Shooter Drills - Pre-K and K

[anna_jackson]

My two oldest boys are starting at a new school after summer break. I just learned from another parent that they will both be doing active shooter drills even at the ages of 4 and 5.

Has anyone had an experience with this where your kids felt like it was a non-event? I’m feeling very anxious and sad about this and don’t want to project my own feelings onto them and make this worse. (But then some other part of my brain chimes in and says BUT WHAT COULD BE WORSE THAN SAVAGE MURDER!?)

My only experience with lockdowns as a kid was when the occasional black bear would wander onto campus and we’d all hunker down in our classroom peering out the window, looking for said bear. It was very exciting.

If anyone can help a nervous dad find hope that this won’t be sheer terror every month, and maybe a little bit like a bear day, I’d appreciate it.

 

[kblankenship09]

@anna_jackson I am a public school kindergarten teacher, I have gone through these drills with 5/6 year olds. And to cut a long and complex discussion short, it’s not traumatizing. It’s honestly mostly boring, the language used is clear but non descriptive. When you tell kids that age that we’re practicing hiding in case someone wants to hurt us, they don’t grasp the reality of what that situation could be like. Some kids look intrigued, most kids shrug their shoulders and say ‘makes sense’, some are thinking about butterflies or how upset they are that their snack wasn’t the snack they wanted. Then when the time comes, and announcement is made, teachers move with intention and seriousness into our proper place, shut the lights lock the doors… and wait, for police officers to unlock the door and check in… and wait for the all clear. The hardest part is that they need to sit still and be quiet.

Im glad they happen, they are mostly to train adults (admin, faculty, and police) and seek out problems in the lockdown plan.

Happy to answer any question

 

[coakland]

@kblankenship09 Thanks for this.

My first soon-to-be kindergartener grew up too fast.

 

[grh]

@kblankenship09 I've seen videos of active shooter drills. It's horrifying that anyone can convince themselves that teaching kids is a realistic possibility that someone is coming to hurt them isn't traumatic.

 

[autiesko]

@grh My guy getting set on fire would be traumatic but fire drills in elementary school were always boring af and never scary.

 

[grh]

@autiesko Yeah... no part of fire drills involves teaching kids to sacrifice themselves to try and save their classmates.

 

[autiesko]

@grh There is no state sponsored official training that teaches a child to sacrifice themself to save their classmate. I’ll take pamphlets, videos, websites with .edu, etc.

Patiently waiting for some source material that shows this is procedure or approved practice.

 

[grh]

@autiesko What do you think the "attack" part of the training is about?

 

[autiesko]

@grh Patiently waiting for a link or some directive you can point me to.

 

[grh]

@autiesko So you know literally nothing about any of this. Cool.

This is like asking me to prove to you that they teach times tables.

 

[autiesko]

@grh That’s the point sir. There’s some new school wide procedure that I’d love to learn about and am kindly asking for sources where I can best learn to help keep kids safe. Did you want to assist in that journey or just win some internet argument?

 

[kblankenship09]

@grh Yeah, that’s not a thing

 

[luba]

@anna_jackson My daughter started pre-k at 4 1/2 and they do active shooter drills. I forget what they call it, but she says when the lights start blinking they have to get into their hiding spots and be quiet. I'm not sure she 100% understands what it's for, so I don't think it causes any anxiety for fright. I have the same sadness about it that you do, I was really kinda just upset and let down when I found out they did these. The schools sends all of the parents a text and email on the days that it happens in case they want to discuss it with the children, so I know when it happens and I asked about it, but she doesn't even really seem to mind it.

Edit: To clarify, I'm upset and let down that we live in a society where these are necessary, I agree that the school should do them.

 

[1986kari]

@luba I just want to share my experience here.

My kid down Lock down drills. She doesn’t comprehend the gravity of what she’s being taught. But what really bothers me, is that they taught the kids Run / Hide / Attack.

As in if you can Run Away. Do that. If you can’t Run, then Hide. If you can’t run out hide, then attack. I get the idea. But I don’t believe kindergarteners should be taught the “attack” portion of this exercise.

 

[voyant]

@luba My boys had their drill in kindergarten shortly before or after Uvalde. Regardless, they were given a lollipop and instructed to be quiet. Of course they loved it; I wanted to cry.

 

[jmkellum504]

@anna_jackson My daughter is 13 and has been doing these drills for years now. We had a conversation about them and she's upset they don't practice them more often. She says she knows what to do in her homeroom but if something were to happen in orchestra, math, science, gym, or any of the other classrooms she's in during the day, she wouldn't know what to do.

We ended up spending an incredibly fucked-up hour drawing diagrams of her classrooms with her seating chart and figuring out the best place in the room to be. She felt better about it afterwards but I felt sickened by the whole thing.

 

[scrish12]

@jmkellum504 This is exactly how one of the students survived and helped others survive. She talks about it in the documentary 77 minutes. She’s really clear that her father told her what to do and she did it. She’s covered herself in the other kids blood and played dead because her father and her had drills. She was even upset that the other kids weren’t listening to her during the event. Proactive thinking while a bit morbid gave her the situational awareness to survive.

 

[overcommer]

@anna_jackson I'm a data guy, so looking at numbers makes me feel better. Sorry in advance if this isn't helpful.

School shootings happen more than is acceptable, but not as often as the news and social media make it seem.

There were 51 one shootings with 140 people killed or injured in 2022.

https://www.edweek.org/leadership/school-shootings-this-year-how-many-and-where/2022/01

There are over 120,000 schools and more than 50 million kids enrolled in public school.
https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372#:~:text=Preliminary%20data%20for%20fall%202021,students%20(source%2C%20source).

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=84#:~:text=There%20were%20a%20total%20of,middle%20schools%20in%202020%E2%80%9321.

The odds of your child being involved in a shooting is quite low. And reading through the individual incidents in the first link, it seems that a lot of them occurred outside of the school.

It's good to be prepared for if something bad happens, but it's not helpful to live in constant fear.

 

[jubida]

@overcommer 51 holy shit that’s insane.

 

[wayani]

@overcommer Definitely a good idea to put it in perspective and extend as much concern to it as it is likely to happen.

On the same note, unnecessary and changeable risk should always be mitigated. I just hope one day we actually have some form of safety or restriction to curb this.