LOCKDOWN- School Shootings

Sadly, more and more school shootings have been happening. Thankfully none of them have been in Iowa. We can never be too careful though.

Schools are required to practice safety procedures as if a shooter were to come into our school.

Today at 9:00AM we had a lockdown drill. A staff member came on the intercom and repeated “lockdown” three times. At that time we knew we were supposed to lock and barricade the door, turn off the lights and computers, and hid in a part of the room that couldn’t be seen from the windows. I was in Sra. Perkins’ room and there is a door in her room that leads to the room where all the geothermal equipment is. This room is a lot bigger than we thought and actually has two floors to in. Our class went in there and we figured that all the Spanish classes in that part of the hallway could fit in there, along with classes from upstairs in the upper part of the room. Luckily for us there were doors in that room that led outside by the track. These doors can only be opened from the inside. We were told that if this were in fact not a drill, that we should immediately run straight out those doors, if it were safe to do so, and keep running and not look back.

This brought up the question “What are we supposed to do in here?” in my next class. Everyone had something to say about this. A lot of people said they would probably run to the nearest exit and run as fast as they could away from the school. Our teacher told us that we should only run if the shooter were on the opposite side of the building, but I was talking to some people and we said that if they were on the other side of the hallway, we wouldn’t want to hid in a room where they can shoot through the window and get in, then we are trapped in the room with no way to get out.

We figured that if we were in class we could figure out where to hide or where to run to, but then someone asked “What are we supposed to do if it’s passing time or SMART lunch?” At that point, we just assumed we’d all run as fast as we could to an exit.

 

RUN, FIGHT, HIDE, is what my teacher told us. I know I wouldn’t have a problem running away. I wonder if we were actually in a lockdown and someone had the chance to grab, fight, or throw something at the shooter, if they would, or if they would they be too scared. I think I would want to throw something at them to slow them down, but I don’t think I could actually do it. And with hiding, I wouldn’t want to just sit there and wait to be found, I would want to do something. I would be afraid they would get into the classroom and then I’m screwed, there’s nothing I could do at that point. I think a lot of people don’t know what they’d do if this situation were upon us, but I hope we never find out.