School lets out at 3:00. At 3:10 an announcement went out over the loudspeaker that we were on Lock Down. Lock Down is the most severe response to an imminent threat occurring near campus, or something going on on campus.
Since it happened after school, I knew it was something real, but I thought maybe some students decided to fight.
For a while, we didn’t know anything concrete. Then rumors and partial truths came in. There was a shooting in the bus ramp. Or was it across the street? Or maybe it was a couple of blocks away.
It turns out there was a shooting. The papers keep saying two blocks away, but when you look at a map it was one street over. At best, one block away. But there were six or seven cop cars with at least 15 uniformed officers right across the street.
The teachers I hunkered down with kept the conversation light the 30 minutes we were on lockdown. But very honestly I was scared. Just two days before 17 students were killed in Parkland, FL. What if a killer had waited until the students were released to fire upon them?
Our students were “fortunate.” This was just a normal, old drive-by shooting. Only two students were wounded, and neither had life-threatening injuries. One of those students is in one of my classes.
It could have been worse.
The Principal of my school put the below on her Facebook feed. She doesn’t want teachers to have to carry firearms in the classroom. Instead, she recommends:
“Arm us with social workers, arm us with psychologists, arm us with more staff, arm us with less standardized testing to spend more time connecting with our students as preventative measures, arm us with tangible resources that support our communities and don’t tie our hands.”
I’ve already seen a lot of thoughts and prayers regarding this and the Parkland shooting on social media. Great. Send those thoughts and prayers. We need more positivity in the world.
But we need more is ACTION. Every single time you get ready to type the words “thoughts and prayers,” I want you to get a pen and a postcard or piece of paper out. I want you to write a short note to your legislators at the local, state, and federal levels DEMANDING common sense gun control. DEMANDING they pass legislation to protect our children. DEMANDING they support public education, so we can fully take care of students so they have less of a chance of ending up deranged.
If all of the folks sending out thoughts and prayers did this, we would start to see real change.
Complacency has gotten us here. Only action will get us out.