Not really surprised. America's obsession with guns has finally caught up and this is what its come down to. Does anywhere else in the world market bullet proof backpacks to kids? Pretty sad that this is the world we live in.

I dont really see the trauma/anxiety that would be associated with this. They sit in a corner of a room with the lights off. Kids probably find this type of drill fun.

One can not give up their freedoms so people can feel "safe". We should be doing our best to make society as safe as possible while respecting the rights of the people. The most free state(nature) is just as dangerous as the least free(inslavement).

Arch: Do you think it's wiser for the school itself to have a plan that doesn't involve students? My local districts use codewords and the school does a lockdown. The students may not even know the school is locked down at first.


To the rest:

The 2a is a consitutional right. Whether you like it or not. I always see people complaining about storage/access/wanting to know what others have...you have no right to dictate how another people live their lives. Drugs are illegal...people still get them. Prostitutes are illegal...people do use them. Stabbing people is illegal....and the numbers of stabbing deaths is higher than rifles. China and Britain have mass stabbings. Why isn't that in the news? Where's the "we have a knife problem" when more people die from being killed by knives than rifles in the US?

We not even talking about the amount of lives saved from defensive uses.

We have a people problem. A problem based in culture and interpersonal relations. We have underlying societial issues. Those need to be addressed instead of just blaming inanimate objects.
 

For elementary school, where students are almost always with their teacher in some way, that probably makes the most sense.

There simply isn't a need to complicate elementary kids lives with even thinking about this kind of issue when the statistical risk to elementary schools is so incredibly tiny in the first place.


Let kids that age just be kids and let the adults worry about this shit.

That isn't coddling or sheltering in some kind of detrimental way.
It is recognizing that, developmentally, kids that age need to feel safe and there simply is no useful reason for intentionally making them feel artificially unsafe as part of a roleplay exercise.

That is using our adult logic to recognize that the practical risk to these kids (at elementary school, specifically) is MINISCULE to where it almost certainly does more harm that good for them to have school shootings (or "bad guys" at school) on their radar at all.


Train the teachers on how to conduct a lockdown.
Give the kids some kind of topic-neutral lockdown practice (lights out / stay quiet).

But complicating the issue with kids worrying about "bad guys" at school has no practical benefit.

From what I know it is neutral. The lockdown practice covers quite a few situations. The lockdown drills have no set threat since it all has the same response. High schools I'm unsure about. But, I think it's similar.

Everything else is good with me.

The OP was about a "bad guy" drill.

That isn't exactly "neutral", IMO.



The more serious horror stories I've seen headlines about are generally high schools and workplaces with more elaborate run/hide/fight roleplay drills (which sometimes aren't announced ahead of time as drills, leading to confusion as to them being real events or not for the participants).

But someone upthread mentioned elementary kids drilling about "throwing stuff at bad guys", which seems like a completely inappropriate way to drill lockdowns with kids that age. 


 

Sorry, yes. Neutral as in no defined threat is announced for the lockdown. The response to various threats has the same response.

EDIT:

I think my wordage is wrong. It sounds weird. Maybe I sould say "blanket response to threats while leaving them undefined" when the lockdown starts partnered with the topic neutral responses in the classrooms.

I'm not very eloquent today lol. 
 

Glad to see your Kindergartener is too sweet

I agree with making it neutral for elementary school kids. That's basically what I proposed earlier.