Almost every school has the same plan set for a school shooting and these plans are usually to hide in a corner, turn off the light and stay quiet. While these plans might have worked when they were made, they don’t anymore because the intruder is often a student.
Also, this isn’t a good plan because most people have very unrealistic expectations when it comes to how someone would act if there was actually a school shooting. We are told that we should not try and run away most of the time. We should identify the gunshots, react quickly, and either hide, run, or fight back in the worst scenario.
It is important to call 911 and embrace a survival mindset, but this isn’t always possible because a school shooting is a very scary situation and most people wont be able to make rational decisions in the moment because of fear.
By using local police officers, we can setup drills that mimic a school shooting so everyone is better prepared to handle it because we can’t just expect teachers to stick to the three step plan. Not only would students and teachers have to perform these plans perfectly every time, obviously they would have to look out for where and what said intruder is doing.
Because of this, schools have lock down practices so students and teachers can experience and practice handling these situations. In some schools in high risk areas for school shootings, they are coming up with things like in classroom safe rooms.
I think that these rooms are a good thing because in an emergency they can be deployed quickly and it can stop the intruder. This is much safer than just hiding in an open corner all in a group.
But, something that makes this method hard to achieve is the cost and how they have to be setup. These cost at least $60,000 for one and work best when they are in a corner of the room (which does not work for some classrooms).
But I think that these whiteboard safe rooms are a necessary expense in a school’s budget since school shootings have been on the rise for many years now, and I also believe that the government should give the schools the money to implement these rooms because of what they can help prevent.
The key is student safety, and it’s hard to put a price tag on that.
