Most schools in America practice drills: tornado, lockdown and fire. Drills are a necessary rehearsal for real scenarios, and they’re an essential part of school safety. But at West, we’ve had two accidental lockdowns — not drills, exactly, but mistakes that severely affected students and staff in our building and worried parents. Today, with the constant fear of active shooters and the mainstream media reporting on tragedy after tragedy, it’s not surprising that our school is scared and even traumatized when these lockdown “accidents,” occur. So, is it even an accident anymore?
On Nov. 30, an accidental lockdown happened during homeroom. I am a homeroom mentor, so I am with freshmen who are fairly new to the school. Freshmen have to face many adjustments, such as new schedules and navigating a large, new building. Right when the alarm went off, almost all of the students were scared, and some even froze in their seats. Luckily, my teacher was alert and guided the students to where they needed to be, but this shouldn’t be an excuse for what happened. So while I felt like the teacher and students responded well, I know the freshmen were frightened because many of them kept hiding under the desks after the all-clear, one even crying and distressed.
This isn’t just traumatizing for students; the same goes for teachers and staff. Some of them even bring their children to school to stay in the daycare on campus. I can only imagine how they were feeling at that moment. I’m glad our teachers are ready for any situation at any given time. When that alarm went off during homeroom, I could see the panic in my teacher’s eyes. But again, no one should have to go through even a minute of unnecessary fear.
This isn’t the first time this has happened this school year. Earlier in the year, the same situation occurred. The alarm for a lockdown went on for about one minute, then an automatic announcement came saying the same message over and over again, which was not reassuring at all. At the time, school officials said they were investigating the cause of the error with the company that runs our intercom system.
Obviously, there are still issues that need to be fixed.
As a student, I don’t want to be worrying in class, I don’t want to be traumatized at school, and I don’t want my peers to take lockdown alarms less seriously as a result of these repeated mistakes. My hope through both of these incidents is that the district superintendent — not just our principal or local security guards — makes this a number one priority and ensures this issue is fixed immediately.
