School Invasion Drill

Thursday, November 20. 2008

Tomorrow my sons high school is planning a school invasion drill. For nearly three hours this will go on. Pretending that shooters have invaded the school.

This is all well and fine yet what will it teach the students and the teachers? Most of the children are already laughing about it. Due to the fact it is so planned out. Knowing what will happen in advance is in many ways not preparing correctly for an emergency such as this.

Doing a walk through of what to do will show the students and teachers a few things but do you honestly think they will do it if something this devastating were to occur in rel life? No, they will have forgotten all that they were shown to do. Why? Because the drill process is expected, boring and no where near life like.

In my opinion they should make it as realistic as possible. Much like the school, I have forgotten what city and state it was, that did a mock school invasion with blanks and actually went through a life like drill. The teachers and the students had been through many of them before stating they were totally prepared for a break in. They were proved wrong. Hearing life like gun sounds in a school hall way wakes the people up to react in a more realistic manner. Needless to say, they were proved wrong and that they were not prepared. Making more mistakes than they thought they would.

A lot of people will say that a drill with blanks shooting every where is wrong and could leave psychological damages. Maybe. Yet our children are a lot more wise than you think. Pre warn that it will be life like in advance. Explain that it will happen during some time in a specified week. If they do not want to participate they are able to stay home. (that is what they are doing with this drill)

Show them all what it is like. The chaos, the noise and the feelings. Then proceed with a drill. The students and faculty might learn more on what they will face.

Right now my sons are not attending. Not my choice. I really did not care one way or the other. I feel that if a real break in (God pray it does not ever happen) happens, the panic will over ride what they did on Friday.

Sad day when you have to have a drill on what to do if a shooter breaks in your school. Our biggest was a bomb and fire drills.

We certainly have come a long way in being civilized haven't we?

Posted by Pandora at 01:51 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0)

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Uh, I don't know how I would feel about that if I had a kid in your school. Sounds a little extreme. You say that your kids are not participating and it's not by your choice. Whose choice was it? Did you leave it up to your spouse, was it the boys choice, or did some other factor come into play?

#1 Preston (Homepage) on 2008-11-20 07:49 (Reply)

My sons decided that they would rather sleep in and go after the drill. Had nothing to do with anything at all other than asking if they wanted to go. Sleep to them is more important.

#2 Pandora on 2008-11-20 12:49 (Reply)

Been here, already done this.
It was back in High School - which for me was infinities ago - but we had a student go pistol-happy and showed up with a loaded .357 with extra rounds.
As I seem to recall - it was all over before the start of classes. He had been seen as severely disrupted and disturbed before. I had several unfortunate personal encounters with this troubled soul. I was still back riding the "screaming yellow monster" and by the time it pulled up and unloaded us the cops were all over the campus and teachers, counselers and
the administrative staff were all in a dithering twither. Then, to add insult to injury, we had some other empty-head
pull the fire alarm and leave a suspicious package in the doorway to the gym. May have even been the same person - I just cannot remember.
So - yeah. A completely rehersed, planned and 'walked-through' 'disaster simulation' is next to useless.
The only way to really learn this is to live through it - as Columbine in Colorado showed the hardest and saddest way possible. A hand-held 'walk-through' is not only not productive it won't even tell the planners and
counselers where the glitches are.
Keep the kids safe at home and bypass this potential 'cluster-f*ck'.
One man's opinion - who has been there and lived through it......

#3 Paganus (Homepage) on 2008-11-21 10:52 (Reply)

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