My 6-year-old son had an active shooter drill at school today

[Rodan]

I conduct and participate in drills to respond to active shooters in schools. It's surreal to walk around a school with a weapon practicing how to stop a threat. And it's heartbreaking to know it may be necessary some day.

I'm 32, so I grew up post-Columbine and remember having similar drills in high school.

 

[Buttzerker]

This shit got old months ago

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So did school shootings but here we fucking are

 

[SolicitorPirate]

I really really didn't want to but our daughter was 8 when we explained to her what happened at Stoneman Douglas high school last year. It was almost unavoidable since her school is also in Broward county so everyone was talking about it. And better we explain it rather than hearing it from someone else.

Ahhhh, the loss of innocence.

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Fucking hell. I'm sorry for both you and your daughter

 

[lmcfigs]

Question from an Australian: are the children aware of the purpose of these drills? At what age do children generally learn that school shootings are a thing?

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I mean the active shooter drill thing is new, but we had bomb threat drills when I was in elementary school. like it's not traumatic I don't think. or at least I hope it isn't

 

[RedMercury]

This was an email parents got from my kids school not too long ago

 

[Hollywood Duo]

https://ibb.co/R6LC5Fd

This was an email parents got from my kids school not too long ago

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Unreal

 

[mentallyinept]

My 3 year old in Pre-K had one of these last week.

 

[Truant]

I mean, it's better to be prepared than not. But the fact that it's come to this at all. Man.

 

[RedMercury]

Unreal

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It's insane and awful, last year they found a loaded handgun magazine at the school too. It sucks always having the thought in your mind if something is going to happen.

 

[carlsojo]

I had lockdown drills when I was a kid all the way back in the nineties and I think pre-Columbine as well.

I wonder if/when they actually started and if people are just actually noticing them now?

 

[Menx64]

I remember having earthquake drills in school. Mass shooting drills sound crazy.

 

[TaterTots]

It sucks OP. I don't remember having "lockdown" drills until Columbine happened. We started having them nearly immediately afterwards and teachers were visibly stressed and on edge. That was back in 1999. I don't remember doing those drills before then. We'd just have fire drills where we went outside in an orderly fashion.

 

[PlayBee]

We had drills at my elementary school in the early 2000s, though they weren't very explicit on what the potential danger was.

 

[Alucrid]

Question from an Australian: are the children aware of the purpose of these drills? At what age do children generally learn that school shootings are a thing?

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we had active shooter drills in the early 2000s. mine started in middle school so around 11-12

It sucks OP. I don't remember having "lockdown" drills until Columbine happened. We started having them nearly immediately afterwards and teachers were visibly stressed and on edge. That was back in 1999. I don't remember doing those drills before then. We'd just have fire drills where we went outside in an orderly fashion.

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that, then 9/11, then the dc sniper, all seemed to up the drills i had

 

[maxxpower]

Anything but banning guns.

 

[TaterTots]

I had lockdown drills when I was a kid all the way back in the nineties and I think pre-Columbine as well.

I wonder if/when they actually started and if people are just actually noticing them now?

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I just posted, but I can't remember any before Columbine. Maybe we did. School shootings aren't something that just started recently. Just got worse.

 

[Menx64]

Holy fuck, kids making barricades... Fix your damn country!



I know my country is more violent than the USA in general, but kids should at least feel safe in their schools!

 

[Volimar]

It's tragic and bizarre that we have to live this way because others have to have their guns and fight any attempt toward common sense legislation.


Weirdly enough we had a bomb threat in my school one year and we all had to evacuate back near the football field. That was the mid 90's.

 

[TaterTots]

EDIT; Wrong thread.

 

[whatsarobot]

As a Canadian I can't even imagine. As a father my heart breaks with you.

 

[Spock]

I'll up you one,n just over a week ago a young girl mistakenly hit a hidden active shooter button, caused SWAT teams, a multiple town police response, etc. Full lockdown with kids and teachers thinking it was real active shooter situation for about 30 mins. My girls were ok but lots of kids were prolly affected to varying degrees.

 

[RiPPn]

My kids do them pretty routinely, but they call it a "lockdown" so they have no idea it's an active shooter drill. They lock the door, turn off the lights, draw the shades, and duck out of site lines from windows.

Scary stuff, and reminds me of the stop drop and roll drills we did in the late 70s early 80s that was supposed to save you from a nuclear blast. And also the earthquake drills where we would sit under the desks.

 

[Tappin Brews]

I'm sure this is commonplace now, but I had to get this off my chest.

When I asked him how school was today and he described the drill, I honestly had to turn away and go in another room so he wouldn't see that I was getting emotional.

They call it a "Sheep, Shepherd, Wolf" drill. Kids are the sheep, teacher is the shepherd and "someone who's not supposed to be there" is the wolf.

Just awful.

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this shit makes me mental (teacher). when we have drills at school i use the time to get on my soap box that i'm not allowed to bring a multi-tool to work (because a 2" blade) but am free to have a 36" 20+ lbs gordon freeman pipe wrench i call a weapon, that can literally kill a person in a single swing, and i get pats on the pack.

we had a staff full day training with law enforcement, firing blanks, learning how to pack and dress wounds.... utter nonsense. i got chewed out for attending but grading papers rather than participating. i'll do it again. fuck normalizing this bullshit, lets start a conversation on how we address the problem rather than conform to it!

oh, we also got staff panic buttons this year, that report out to a PA system that can be heard school wide as well as through the neighborhood, and have had 3 false alarms so far. cool, cool.

 

[molnizzle]

What's really upsetting is there's nothing you can do. Parents are completely powerless. Even if you can afford private school, that's can't protect your kids. These events can happen anywhere.

Our culture is just rotten. I hate it so much.

 

[Commedieu]

Better to be prepared than caught slipping.

Nah, it's pretty accurate.

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Civility.

 

[Tappin Brews]

What's really upsetting is there's nothing you can do. Parents are completely powerless. Even if you can afford private school, that's can't protect your kids. These events can happen anywhere.

Our culture is just rotten. I hate it so much.

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go to school board meetings. your child's enrollment at a public school is a powerful tool

edit: sorry, you are asking about protecting kids. vote for gun control.

 

[linkboy]

I honestly don't understand how 2nd Amendment supporters think this is okay. Even if you love guns, how is forcing American children to do these kinds of drills the sort of thing that puts a smile on your face, and makes you pat your gun with a warm reassurance and a whisper of "This is how America SHOULD be, baby..."

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Because the only thing they care about is their guns.

They don't give one fuck about your, or anyone else's kids.

They made that abundantly clear after Sandy Hook

 

[JB2448]

Completely unnecessaey

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This shit got old months ago

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I'm sorry. It's just hard not to feel discouraged from this even being a necessary move for our public education system. That we even need to have active shooter drills in elementary schools is indicative of a problem with our culture at the systemic level.

I'm sorry, OP. I can't even imagine what it feels like to have your own flesh and blood describe something so horrific in terms like that at such a young age.

 

[Nida]

We only had fire drills and in grade school we had chemical drills because we were close to several chemical plants. Not sure why the chemical drills didn't continue in middle school.

 

[Hollywood Duo]

I'm sorry. It's just hard not to feel discouraged from this even being a necessary move for our public education system. That we even need to have active shooter drills in elementary schools is indicative of a problem with our culture at the systemic level.

I'm sorry, OP. I can't even imagine what it feels like to have your own flesh and blood describe something so horrific in terms like that at such a young age.

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I get where you are coming from. No one here is happy about the situation in our schools.

 

[Mariolee]

how old are you? i had to do these drills in 2008 in middle school

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Same.

 

[Goldenroad]

Shit ain't right man.

Ban guns.

 

[Wetwork]

I had active shooter drills in elementary.

I'm 26. Just a fact of the matter

 

[-Pyromaniac-]

We have them here in Canada. They usually practice what is called a "Lockdown Drill", twice a year.

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yah ever since I was kid. They weren't specifically about shooters. Just emergency lockdown drills. Even in the 90s in Canada. I remember always thinking if shit popped off I would just dip and not follow the instructions to lock myself in a classroom and hide behind a barricade of desks.

 

[Skeeter49]

Yeah, we did one last year at the school I worked at. I mean, it sucks that's the world we live in, but it's good the schools are doing it, in case something does happen, obviously we hope it never does, but there's always that chance, and it's good to prepare.

 

[Septimus Prime]

I am terrified of sending my kids to school in the not-too-distant future.

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

I didn't realize this was commonplace.

 

[BringBackSonics]

I'm sure this is commonplace now, but I had to get this off my chest.

When I asked him how school was today and he described the drill, I honestly had to turn away and go in another room so he wouldn't see that I was getting emotional.

They call it a "Sheep, Shepherd, Wolf" drill. Kids are the sheep, teacher is the shepherd and "someone who's not supposed to be there" is the wolf.

Just awful.

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Damn, does suck that we are in this day and age now.

But, it's necessary and I know many teachers take their responsibility of children at the highest levels

 

[dubc]

ugh, my 6 yo is in school this year. No news of any drills...yet. It's likely to happen at some point though. :(

 

[Eggiem]

Thoughts and prayers. Thats all we can do.

/s

 

[BringBackSonics]

I didn't realize this was commonplace.

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My wife says they have to do it twice a school year.

 

[Speevy]

Lockdown drills are mandatory here.

I am pretty firmly anti-gun but I don't see the harm in practicing for intruders. It doesn't need to scare your kids.

I even have the kids practice for other situations, such as "What if one kid throws a desk across the room and starts screaming?" or "What if there's a student who's lost control in the hallway?" in addition to tornado, fire, and other drills.

 

[Hero_of_the_Day]

I have a friend who has a daughter who was in junior high a few years back. The school was having a shooting drill, for teachers. It was an early dismissal day, and the drill was supposed to be after the students had left. Unfortunately, my friends daughter and a few other students were still there for some club. The local cop (small ass town) came and simulated gun shots. At which point the kids freaked the fuck out, and my friends daughter called him crying that there was someone shooting at the school.

Life is weird here in America.

 

[TheXbox]

I don't know if this will make you feel better or worse but I did these in grade school fifteen+ years ago. You kinda just hug the wall while the teacher locks the door and kills the lights. Then you wait for a cop or someone to jiggle the doorknob and walk away.

They never tried to disguise the practice as anything other than a defense against armed intruders. I can't say it affected me except on a subconscious level. It became as mundane as the fire drill.

I imagine these shooter drills started after Columbine, so parents of new elementary students are probably the last generation who never grew up in an environment where children are prepared for gunmen as a matter of course.

 

[Jag]

I really really didn't want to but our daughter was 8 when we explained to her what happened at Stoneman Douglas high school last year. It was almost unavoidable since her school is also in Broward county so everyone was talking about it. And better we explain it rather than hearing it from someone else.

Ahhhh, the loss of innocence.

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We are in Broward too, but my kids were a bit older. Of course they knew people who went to Douglas, like my son's GF, so that made the horror all the more real.

 

[rpm]

I took part in "lockdown drills" when I was in elementary school/when I was the same age as your son, not at all uncommon in the U.S. There was none of that "victim" stuff that some other schools do. That seems like it would traumatize kids. They just had the principal or some other teacher jiggle the door knob. I wasn't fazed at all.

 

[KtotheRoc]

I had to do drills like this in High School. It is absolutely terrifying that this has been so normalized, and the fact that the country continues to elect these shitty politicians who do nothing to actually help people is infuriating.

 

[Expy]

Honestly, I wouldn't mind this if I lived in a country where there is a mass shooting every week.

 

[Turnabout Sisters]

I had these in elementary school in the early 00s, I guess as a reaction to columbine. They taught us all these hand signals to indicate having to crawl along the ground and stuff. I thought it was really strange back then as I hadn't heard of columbine and I'd never imagined someone with a gun coming on campus to shoot people. That's actually just a really bizarre thing to happen in general.

 

[syth]

* Common in the USA.


Thats seriously fucked up OP.