How does a 13 yr old get an AK-47?

[crazymomof4]

Here's the latest school shooting! Fortunately no one was physically hurt!
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/09/missouri.school.ap/index.html

What's this? Four in the last, what? 10 days or so?

My kindergartener had a "drill" on what to do if a stranger comes into the school! She told me with a smile on her face, "We have a place that we hide in the classroom."

Is this nuts? or is it the "new normal"? Stop the world, I want to get off!

Anyone else getting the shivers when you drop your kids off at school in the mornings?

 

[flipturngirl]

I can not believe what has been happening. I am sad. It is normal to have drills. In elementry school we had one each year.

 

[Cindy B]

Sheltered and secured environment drills (hide in the classroom or hide in a "safe" place of the school with no windows) are commonplace since Columbine.

I've worked at schools since 2002 and its pretty common.

 

[coolbeans]

My DD has a code that the principal announces over the intercom when they feel someone is there that is a threat (she makes a mellow announcement and somehow gets the number into the announcement...like she would say "attention, we have perfect attendance all *300* kids are here today!!" the magic number is 300 and the teachers know to lock the doors and the kids head to the bathroom or closet or behind the shelves that store their stuff. Scared the snot out of me when she first told me about it, I almost didn't believe her but it's true. They practice it once a month or so. It is scary that we have to think about it!

 

[CEDmom]

The drill is a norm. The kids actually do take it in stride much like the fire drills of our day or the air raid drills many of our parents went through.

I don't think my DD is any more or less safe at school than she is anywhere else. Bad things happen all over the place. I'd rather her know what to do in various situations than just hope they never happen.

A 13 yo and a gun of any kind is just an accident waiting to happen.

 

[teacherforhi]

In NC, schools are required to have two lockdown drills a year. We don't use the code words though because no one could remember all the different ones our police department tried to force on us. We figured if there was a bad guy in the building and we're making the kids hide in the corner in the dark, they might know something was up anyway.

 

[Mickey1122]

Our schools have not had a lock down drill yet, but security has been increased dramatically. We live in a little town where nothing happens. We were shocked at the bomb threat four years ago. They never did catch the person who wrote it.

 

[KelNottAt]

Yup, sad but true. My kids have:
Lockdown drills (last year 2 real lockdowns at their middle school: a student brought a knife to school and a student brought a gun)
Fire drills
Tornado drills
Bus evac drills - really held on the side of the road with State Troopers observing

 

[golfgal]

My DS14 has been having lock down and bomb drills since kindergarten so they have been around for a while. The lockdown drills when they started were mainly for things like a non-custodial parent coming in trying to take a child or if there was an escaped convict on the loose in the area but they have evolved into a gun in the building drill. I think the sheet they sent home not long ago said the district does 5 lockdown drills/year, 2 with the students present and 3 with only staff. The standard is to shelter in place meaning they lock the classroom door and stay in the room until it is safe to leave.

While there have been a lot of incidences this past week you have to remember that those have been what, 5 schools out of how many hundreds of thousands of schools across the nation.