@@@3/27 - Another school shooting in Nashville

[BlondeSpiders]

Mar 29, 2023 8:15:27 GMT -5 mysteriouswife said:

Mar 29, 2023 7:08:13 GMT -5 maudefindlay said:

DD is worried. She said every time they do the active shooter drill she has classmates who won't be quiet and she's scared the shooter will find them because they'll be heard. Things the children of the country worry about, fuck.

My son said the same. He’s 7.

I firmly believe these kids will carry this trauma for their entire lives.

Several years ago I remember a poster here (I'll let her self-disclose if she wishes) saying how sad and scared her young son was after a drill. Apparently in their classroom there was one perfect little hiding spot and he was afraid someone might get to it before him and he'd be exposed and vulnerable. No child should ever have to carry a burden like that.

That story shook me, and has remained in my mind.

[fancynewbeesly]

Mar 29, 2023 15:16:23 GMT -5 sparty04 said:

I'm surprised that so many kids don't have the drills. My kids have been having them since they were babies in daycare (it was in a high school so maybe that's why) and now that they're in Elementary school, they know that they're Alice drills and have a good idea of what they are for.

One thing that has always stuck in my head is light up shoes. I once read that a teacher had a kid take off their shoes because they were in hiding and that was the day I vowed I would never buy those.

Same. I know in NJ we have to have one fire drill per month and one "other" drill. (lockdown, evacuation, or shelter in place) a month. So it typically ends up being 3-4 actual lock down drills per year. 

[bronxgirl]

My daughter's Hebrew school did lockdown drills with the teachers, but not the students. I'm pretty sure her elementary school was the same, but I don't remember.

These types of discussions always remind me how far removed I am from gun culture. I can't think of anyone I know who owns a gun, certainly not anyone who keeps it in their home.

[goldengirlz]

Mar 29, 2023 17:28:04 GMT -5 bronxgirl said:

My daughter's Hebrew school did lockdown drills with the teachers, but not the students. I'm pretty sure her elementary school was the same, but I don't remember.

These types of discussions always remind me how far removed I am from gun culture. I can't think of anyone I know who owns a gun, certainly not anyone who keeps it in their home.

I used to think this was true too — grew up in one liberal bubble and now live in yet another liberal fantasy world — but you’d be surprised. A few years ago, the head of my kid’s aftercare program casually dropped that her husband owns a gun. One of my H’s friends from high school — Ivy League-educated, lives in Manhattan, works in finance, has a wife and kid — has a gun.

While only a third of Americans own guns (though it’s more if you count people who live in a household with a gun), I think we make a mistake in thinking it’s just right-wing gun nuts in red states. It’s just talked about less where it’s less socially accepted.

[wanderingback]

Well, there’s a new Netflix documentary about emergencies that follows EMT and Emergency departments and one of the first stories in the pediatric ED is of a teen who has been shot. So heartbreaking, this is not ok.

[erbear]

My school dropped ALICE training and full lockdown drills a couple of years ago. It’s just too traumatic for teachers and kids. We talk through the “plan”, I’ve shown each class where to go in my room, we have practiced shelter in place (pulling all the kids into the room, but not locked down). I am grateful for this approach, honestly. I know that’s not popular.

[erbear]

Mar 29, 2023 19:22:31 GMT -5 wanderingback said:

Well, there’s a new Netflix documentary about emergencies that follows EMT and Emergency departments and one of the first stories in the pediatric ED is of a teen who has been shot. So heartbreaking, this is not ok.

I can’t even imagine the trauma of a doc trying to save a child from a GSW. It makes me cry to even think about it.

[arehopsveggies]

I always wonder if I could fit all 18 kids in my bathroom. It is very very crazy tiny (like, so tiny I couldn’t use it pregnant).

I do have a door to outside but if we just run to a locked fence I don’t know if that’s better.

The day we got shot with nerf guns at work was soul crushing

My son was sad that the student in his grade that gets mad and throws furniture isn’t in his class. He was sure that child would save them all in an emergency.

[magpie]

Mar 28, 2023 21:37:48 GMT -5 mysteriouswife said:

Mar 28, 2023 20:46:00 GMT -5 lo said:

You can always try to grab the gun if you encounter a shooter. Yup. Or get some bee spray for your room, apparently.

My DD is in high school. The first day of class her teacher showed all the kids a filing cabinet drawer full of scissors and the bottom full of larger rocks. He said if something were to happen for the kids to grab one of each to throw at the attacker. He also had a metal table that he plans to flip and block the door. She came home shook. I was in awe he had carefully planned something out. It was later told he had a college friend in one of the school shootings. He was planning based on fear and tragedy on a personal level.

As a teacher, I can tell you that I'm pretty sure every single teacher in the US has thought about this scenerio in detail, carefully thinking through strategies in their own classroom. I don't know if I'm more fightened than most because my life has been touched by random gun violence before, but the thought that something like this could happen was present for me every single day that I went to work, albeit far in the back of my mind most of the time.

Up until very recently, I taught at a school just a few miles from the one attacked on Monday. I've since moved from the area and out of the country, but it is absolutely heartbreaking.  It's interesting that the school my kids now go to, in a country where school shootings are not a thing, still has lockdown drills. I don't think lockdown drills and training kids how to shelter in place is a bad idea, but I do think that some of the trainings can focus way too much on the violence and not on simple things like how to lock the door and be sure it's locked from the inside. I've taken more than a few trainings over my career and the absolute worst one was one run by the cops of a University where I once worked. It was almost like an action movie or a game to them because the whole thing just made me feel terrified. Conversely, I've done trainings with a good balance of information and common sense (mostly focused on keeping doors locked and propped so they are easy to close/no fumbling for your keys and stuff like that). I don't know. I hate that we put the burden on kids and teachers. It's not fair to make them train for this and do absolutely nothing to prevent it. The gun control is the issue.

[goldengirlz]

Mar 29, 2023 19:56:47 GMT -5 erbear said:

My school dropped ALICE training and full lockdown drills a couple of years ago. It’s just too traumatic for teachers and kids. We talk through the “plan”, I’ve shown each class where to go in my room, we have practiced shelter in place (pulling all the kids into the room, but not locked down). I am grateful for this approach, honestly. I know that’s not popular.

This is what my kid’s school does and I’m totally on board. While the risk is always there, I remind myself that the absolute risk is still low. It’s too much for kids, especially with so many still battling covid-era anxiety.

My DC is already traumatized enough. We just had to put them in a more intensive kind of therapy, and this is something they’re working on.

[wanderingback]

Healthcare workers are at a high risk of violence. Like regularly get assaulted. I had a few scary moments in residency with verbal threats and I always wondered if that person owned a gun. And now I don’t so much worry about my patients and violence (mostly young Black and Hispanic women), but the nut job protestors and antis in general. Unfortunately, No one is immune from the threat of gun violence in this country and going to work can be a real threat for some people, it’s horrible.

[estrellita]

All these stories are just horrible. I have no idea actually if E (2nd grade) does drills. I want to say no, but I'm not sure. I think he'd be traumatized by a "real" drill with the nerf guns. He already has anxiety and is an extreme germaphobe at times, so this stuff will just make it worse. But then again, I'm at home having a mini panic attack when I hear sirens (we live off a main highway, not uncommon) and they turn toward the school. This happened recently and I really did panic for a minute. Turned out to be a minor fire in the high school, no one was hurt or anything. This is a fairly "safe" town but so is the town in this same general area that had a shooting a long time ago (like, back when you could actually separate them all, I'm pretty sure I was in high school). I think about it out in public a lot too. Going to any public event causes a mini panic attack and I find myself sometimes looking for exits, things to hide behind, etc.

Why are we living this way. This is not ok. I've lost hope of anyone doing anything about it. I feel so defeated, yet incredibly lucky I haven't been directly touched. Yet. Though I do have friends that were in Vegas, in lockdown at the MOA a couple times, and I feel like it's just a matter of time. I hate this so much and often think about the families of the victims, especially the kids 😢

[sonrisa]

[RoxMonster]

Honestly there were a LOT of reasons I left teaching, but yes, one of those many reasons was also this. It was something on my mind a lot at school. I taught in a community where hunting was huge, most homes had guns, and many of my students used and had access to guns. I had times where students would get so mad about something and yell/curse me out, even throw papers at me and storm out etc. and I would be on tenterhooks the days after that worried they'd come in with a gun.

Now I work mostly from home. I have become a pretty big homebody for lots of reasons, especially since Covid. When I do go out places, I am always looking for the exits. Which, sure, it's good to know that in case of fire or some other emergency but let's be honest. I am most worried about a mass shooting. It is so sad and infuriating this is the way we have to live.

[mpm]

Your Local Epidemiologist today on active shooter drills:

We do not know whether active shooter drills prevent active shooters from engaging at schools. We also don’t know whether they reduce injury and mortality.

A large study found active shooter drills in high school increased fear, inflated perceptions of risk, and decreased perceptions of school safety. These feelings lasted for years—through college.

Other research found students felt significantly less safe at school or in various parts of the building after school shooting drills.

In 2021, scientists conducted a huge study—including data from over 54 million social media posts on Twitter and Reddit—to determine if mental health changed after active shooter drills. They found:
- Sharp increases in stress, anxiety (42% increase), depression (39% increase), and fears about death (22%) following school shooting drills
- Change regardless of grade. High school students, though, experienced the greatest negative impact.
- Symptoms remained elevated over time—at least 90 days after a drill.

yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/active-shooter-drills-do-risks-outweigh?publication_id=281219&utm_medium=email&action=share&isFreemail=true

[shauni27]

mpm, that is so upsetting.
scm1011, I cannot imagine that sweet little C having to go through those drills.

[Deleted]

Mar 29, 2023 13:56:29 GMT -5 lilac05 said:

NewOrleans, you and I know that. But all of the gun owners I know (Midwest, so…a lot) all swear they’re responsible gun owners. And they store their guns safely. Many will tell you that they’re in different places, to prove how responsible they are. But then…if that’s the case, they’re no good in a home invasion situation, which is what they all claim to be scared of.

Well, all except the mom in a former moms group who I found out later *always* carried a gun on her. Yes, even at play dates in other peoples’ homes. It was apparently one of those really tiny ones because I never saw it on her, but I 100% believe her. (I’ll let you guess how many more play dates we went on with them after that!)

I was at my kids’ school after an intruder drill (different than their ALICE drill, I guess?), and it legitimately triggered selective mutism in one of the students. He didn’t speak at all at school for several days. This wasn’t new for him in general, but he had been speaking at school before, and he is again now. Utterly heartbreaking.

Good god, wouldn’t it be amazing if we lived in a society safe enough that people didn’t feel like they needed to arm themselves?? That women could feel safe in their vehicles and on the streets at night? What the hell is wrong with us??

[abs]

I'm really struggling. I know we all are.

@@ and PDQ

On Tuesday we got an email from DD's school saying they are aware of rumors being spread, that they have been addressed, and that the police found the threat to be non credible. There have been several threats this year but this is the closest one to DD. When she got home from school she told me someone wrote that they are shooting up the school on April 7th. The boy that wrote it was in one of her classes, sat at her table, and has been disciplined to the full extent possible. She said she wouldn't be surprised if he really was planning on something because the boy is very hateful and has been in trouble so much this school year.

So yesterday she came home with a story of yet another threat. This one more vague but she is now terrified to go to school. She is already asking if she can stay home next week and I don't even know what to say.

I'm so sick of this. Kids and teachers shouldn't be scared to go to school. This shouldn't be their reality. Our priorities are so fucked up. Ban books to protect the kids! Ban pronouns to protect the kids! Ban hormones to protect the kids! Oh, guns? Nothing we can do except pray. I HATE it here.

[shauni27]

abs and @jauhawkgirl these stories are horrifying.

I had a client a couple of years ago whose daughter survived a school shooting (HS aged) and was always dealing with the trauma of it. I literally cannot fathom it.

[basilosaurus]

I'm sure I've shared before, that I experienced an extreme school playground trauama. It was maybe preventable, but also an a freak accident. It was written about in papers. No guns.

It's been about 30 years. I can still picture going on the playground and seeing results (which I won't describe here). I still remember my words. I remember the well meaning assholes saying "at least she was Christian" in a school about half Christian. Not that it matters on either side.I remember not telling my dad. She was a close friend. I did not let my dad know for probably a month. He found out from the newspaper.

When we "think of the children" I think most here think of how it's affected their own with the drills and fears.

Sure, books affected me, as they absolutely should. But reading about things I should not ever experience affected me, too. Rightly. But the fear is sp very bad.

I'm sorry if I rambled.

[morecoffeeplease]

@
I’m a special education teacher for non speaking students. Lockdown drills are so hard for us for other reasons. My students don’t know why we are huddled in the bathroom so obviously don’t understand the need to be quiet. We use tablets with headphones so they are engaged with something and lollipops.

If your child is in the same situation as my students know we are doing everything in our power to keep them as safe and quiet as possible in situations like these.

[seeyalater52]

I’m so sorry to everyone who is being impacted by gun violence and the impacts on our families and schools. My toddler is traumatized from a fire alarm drill and still talks about it being scary nearly daily 6+ months later so I can’t imagine how I’ll feel once he has to do shooter drills. I hope by then they come up with better evidence based ways to deal with that - or just ban the fucking guns and be done with it.

Not to make it about me but I'm feeling the impacts this week too. My wife works in a public facing office for the city and their office has been getting threats and complaints about trans employees and people claiming they’re going to kill them because of some hysteria over transgender day of visibility that (predictably) makes no sense. Im terrified. They’re terrified. They are going to work from home temporarily but it’s hard to know if/when this will die down since it’s escalated quite a bit since this shooting.

[lilac05]

It makes me so sick to even think that there could be such a thing as “evidence-based practice” for protecting students in a shooting situation. Because in order to do those studies, there have to be enough shootings to make recommendations on what to do.

I do understand that Alice drills are not without faults, and am not saying that’s what we should continue doing. But also, if I’m really honest, I have zero confidence that there’s anything we really *can* do to keep kids safe against an AR-15. So we try to teach them something to help the adults feel better because we think we’re doing all we can do.

[lo]

So many schools in my area today had prank phone calls with people calling in to report school shootings with gun shot recordings playing in the background. So lots of schools went into lockdowns. My school did not, but then we heard after dismissal that a student’s family at another school in district went on campus and threatened to shoot it up. So he’s being charged with Terroristic Threats.

I bought a 3 story fire escape ladder for my classroom on Amazon, because why the fuck not.