This is topic Intruder Drills in Schools in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.


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Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
 
So my building is currently under "Code Red" drill. Teachers are supposed to gather any and all students into a corner of the room not visible to outsiders. Fortunately I have one student in the technology room with no windows.

The funny thing is we are supposed to put how many people are in the room on a little card and tape it to the classroom door. Ummmm. So the intruder will know who has the most students?
 
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
 
By the way, my one student is female, so I had my door open as a 21st century male teacher/female student precaution.

I felt it safer to open the door into the library and ask the librarian to be a witness for me.

I was born in the wrong era.
 
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
 
I have to do those drills too, but there is no corner in my room that is not visible from a door or window. I have two windows in the room and from them you could see any part of the room except along the wall between the windows - and that wall is directly across from the door.

We don't have to do the tape it to the window thing...that's hilarious!
 
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Belle:
I have to do those drills too, but there is no corner in my room that is not visible from a door or window. I have two windows in the room and from them you could see any part of the room except along the wall between the windows - and that wall is directly across from the door.

We don't have to do the tape it to the window thing...that's hilarious!

Heh.

In my old room I had a corner that wasn't visible to the outside. The problem was I had 35 students. I had a piece of tape on the floor marking where it was "safe" only 20 could get behind it.
 
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Stephan:
... So the intruder will know who has the most students?

It's like Quake, you need to know how many enemies are on a level before starting [Wink]
 
Posted by TheGrimace (Member # 9178) on :
 
question: are these drills intended to protect against columbine-esque events?

If so, while staying away from doors and windows is certainly useful, aren't you also showing your potential aggressors the security measures you are using against them? (Not that I know of another option I suppose)
 
Posted by AchillesHeel (Member # 11736) on :
 
The precautions never make any sense, my high school had several bomb threats over the years and they make us sit out on the football field and bleachers until the school was cleared. It didnt take me long to realized that no one ever took the time to make sure that the field and bleachers werent rigged with explosives. I still expect that kind of situation to actually happen.
 
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
 
Right after Columbine my school had something like 35 bomb threats over the next two months. Almost every single day we'd become a massive herd of students moving out in the open to the nearby community center.

If I wanted to kill a large number of students, I'd have called in a threat and then wiped out the entire student body as they were all packed into one gym.
 
Posted by neo-dragon (Member # 7168) on :
 
We have "lockdown" drills as well. The general procedure is just to lock the doors, turn off the lights, get on the ground (preferably under desks, and definitely out of sight), and make the classroom appear empty. The hard part is making sure that the kids don't try to text on their cell phones.
 
Posted by Shanna (Member # 7900) on :
 
When we did these drills in my elementary school growing up (early 90s) I got the impression they were protect against psycho adults. For example, a messy divorce where an armed parent heads into the school to claim their child. We didn't do the number on the door thing. All our class rooms had large windows on the wall along the hall, so we were supposed to line up against a wall perpendicular to the hall wall and close the blinds.

We didn't do any of these drills in junior high or senior high. But during my sophomore or junior year, I remember we had a bomb threat that turned into a major chaotic mess. They started trying to evacuate the school until security become concerned about shooters on the roof. My school had multiple campuses for each grade level and some of the older sections didn't have PA systems so passing information about procedure was impossible.
 
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
 
quote:
The hard part is making sure that the kids don't try to text on their cell phones.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your students are allowed to have cell phones in class? Ours are strictly prohibited from having them. We even have periodic checks with a metal detector to make sure students don't have them.
 
Posted by neo-dragon (Member # 7168) on :
 
We don't have metal detectors and we can't exactly search our students. Of course they are not allowed to use them in class, but there's not much we can do to stop them from possessing them.
 
Posted by Sala (Member # 8980) on :
 
We had a code red this week. A parent was in the building and became angry with a teacher and was storming down the hall making loud threats. The teacher called the office about it and the office put us on a code red. That meant we locked the doors, closed the blinds to the outside, and put the prepared butcher paper over the windows to the multipurpose area. Then we emailed how many students we had and whether all were accounted for or not. The police came and escorted the parent out. It was a little scary, but the kids did all right. We also have code red medical and we had this a couple of weeks ago when a first grader's heart monitor started beeping and he fainted. The code red medical just required us all to be in our rooms so that no one would be in the halls when emergency personnel arrived. Thankfully the boy is okay now.
 
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
 
My school had several bomb threats my senior year. And every time, we evacuated to the football field. We had a brilliant administration, let me tell you.
 


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