School Safety Vol. IX Issue VII

The intercom turns on, signaling that the school is going into lockdown. Students begin evacuating their seats to go sit along the wall out of view from the door – out of sight of a potential school shooter – but after the teacher locks the door and shuts the blinds, they stop the class. It’s just a drill, stay in your seats and keep working, the teacher says. The problem is, it isn’t...

Students, faculty, and even first responders practice safety drills such as fire drills and lockdowns in order to prepare for the potential disasters that can occur. These drills serve as a foundation for most emergency situations in school. State law requires one fire drill per month and two lockdowns per semester. The traditional protocol in a fire drill is to evacuate all the buildings and send eve...

On an April morning in 1999, the world changed. Columbine High School endured a school shooting that shocked America. This incident astounded the entire nation and caused a widespread feeling of panic and sorrow. Like Pearl Harbor or 9/11, it was such a shocking event that people remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. Since 2013, there has been 168 school shoot...