Active shooter drills. They block/cover the glass in the classroom door window and hide quietly in the classroom they’re in. The doors are locked if not locked already.

In my DCPS elementary school we just call them lockdown drills. We’ve done them for real when there have been shootings outside and once after a shooting outside and we found an unsecured door to the building.

Kids get down and sit in a corner farthest from the door and windows. We sit down silently and wait (except for the few kids who like to be jerks and intentionally make noise…or the kid I had once repeatedly and loudly ask in the not a drill lockdown what kind of gun we thought the shooter had).

I teach kids who are aware of shootings and almost all have been personally impacted by gun violence. I still explain it in vague terms of we need to practice how to keep you safe from things that might be happening outside.

In my FCPS school, we are supposed to keep all doors locked all the time, so we can swing the door shut immediately if it is open. We have blackout paper to slap up against door windows with Velcro pre-attached. We have to pull blinds, have kids squeeze on the floor out of any line of fire from a door or window, and remain completely silent. Admin walks around rattling doorknobs and we are not to react or open doors to that. We don’t get up until admin unlocks the door. We are not allowed to use any technology at all during this time. It’s scary for kids and hard to explain to little kids why. If kids are in the halls, they are told to run into the nearest room and stay with that adult, and not try to get to class. We are told to not open the door to let a straggler back in.

How have we come to this? I can tell you why. It’s stressful.

Anonymous wrote:For active shooter drills we had to identify a spot where we would go in the event of a school shooting and keep all of our kids quiet there. So in our case we crammed 50 kids in a shared bathroom between two classes and waited quietly until given the all clear. It's really sobering and sad and was the worst when I had my own child in another classroom down the hall and thought about how horrifying it would be for the drill to be reality.

Also, lockdown drills often also include closing all blinds, moving kids away from doors and ground-floor windows, and locking both doors and ground-floor windows.

For active shooter drills we had to identify a spot where we would go in the event of a school shooting and keep all of our kids quiet there. So in our case we crammed 50 kids in a shared bathroom between two classes and waited quietly until given the all clear. It's really sobering and sad and was the worst when I had my own child in another classroom down the hall and thought about how horrifying it would be for the drill to be reality.

Tornado drills — students go to preassigned safe locations and practice covering their heads and neck.
Earthquake drills— students cover head and neck under desks or tables.

It depends on the school district.

What exactly do they make the students and teachers do for these drills?

I know for the fire alarm, they just walk outside but what do they do for the active shooter or other emergency drills?

Just curious.