Preparing Our Kids For A School Shooting

Public schools prepare for the possibility of a shooting by practice drills, updating security measures and sometimes hiring their own security guards. What can we as parents do to prepare our kids for such a possibility? Given the frequency and unfortunate regularity of deadly school shootings, it seems like a question of not if but when a shooting will happen in our kid’s school.

I have googled this a bit and did not find much useful information. After one of the shootings last year, one mother’s idea of giving child a door-stopper to keep in her backpack went viral. She thought it would help keep the door closed but that turned out to be a false hope as it was pointed out that most classroom doors open outward and a door-stopper would not help.

A mommy-friend whose both kids are black-belts in taekwondo said that knowing martial arts can help a little. The kid will know how to inflict maximum and effective pain on the shooter’s body. Of course, the fact that the shooter has a gun or bigger assault weapon makes one wonder how useful martial arts knowledge can be.

The recent shooting in a Denver school hit us close to home as two of our local families moved there four years ago. The families visited our area two weeks after the shooting and it was surreal to talk with the kids. We did learn some things that we don’t get to read in the news. One take-away was that when the SWAT teams start evacuating classrooms, they enter a classroom and immediately order all to leave in a line with hands up in the air. Students are not allowed to take their backpacks or any other belongings. In the Denver school, many students ended up leaving the classroom without their cell phones. Unless the student has the phone in his pocket, chances are that he cannot take it with him. They also have to leave behind expensive belongings like laptops. Rooms are mostly sealed as the entire school becomes a crime scene.

The Denver parents told us that we should pay more attention to the names that we fill in the emergency pick-up form as after evacuation, students are released only to people on that list. Students of all ages are released only after an authorized adult signs them out. I remember filling in those forms very carelessly and filling in the name of whichever friend came to mind.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the school can remain locked for days or weeks. The belongings of the students remain in the classrooms. I don’t know how one can prepare for being away from belongings for so long but it is something to remember anyway.

On a slightly different note, the Denver kids, who were 10th-12th graders, told us that since the shooting happened a few days before the school year was to end, the district decided to close the school for the year. Final exams were cancelled and students hoping to pull up their grades by doing well in the final were left high and dry. AP exams were also cancelled, though the school was trying to work with College Board to conduct them later. For the poor seniors, it was an abrupt end to their high school days.

In the Denver shooting, three students tackled the shooter while the others escaped. One of the three was killed. If faced with a shooter suddenly appearing in the classroom or a classmate taking a weapon out of his bag, should our kid attack the shooter, hide under a desk or try to escape from a window? This is not a conversation I wish to have with my kid, but it seems like a necessary one.

Thoughts? What can we do to prepare out kids for such an eventuality? Share your ideas and also any good links you come across on the internet.
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Good kids can turn into shooters too. The Denver school is a charter school with wait-list for students.

That's what I'd do too.

 

The question is about what we can do as parents directly with our kids. Bringing pressure on the school management is usually as futile as the efforts to change gun laws.

In our school district, both the suggestions were discussed in meetings with teachers. Auto scanning or stricter security at entry means that there should be only one or two entry points into the main school area. Most public school design is more open. They have multiple exits from corridors to the main assembly area or to the playgrounds. Such exits are needed for other emergency evacuation situations.

Security guard -- how many? Funding issues come up.