Locked Doors and Active Assailant Drills Do NOT Make Our Kids Safer at School

I’m told that the changes that welcomed my little scholars back to school make them safer, but I don’t think they do.

And, while I respect the school’s efforts to watch over my children when I’m not, I’ll kindly disagree with the new manner in which they define safety.

To me, a school that operates in a perpetual state of locked down is not a safe house.

A building with more miles of fence than yards of track is not one where students are free.

I’ve gone with the flow so far, though, because I’ve been assured that these things made my children safer.

My tune is beginning to change.

In fact, I can no longer have lunch with my kids at school – unless I reach “Level Two” volunteer status.  That status, I’m told by the lovely administrator I’ve known for years that now sits behind a glass partition, requires a $40 finger-print for each parent.

Not only am I disappointed that I had to buzz into the office only to be told to leave, I regret that many families won’t have the budget for laying down $80 for the opportunity to share a PB&J with their son or daughter.

Forgive me, but, to me, our kids are no safer because it is now more difficult for their parents to come near their classroom.

But, as most of my fellow parents will do, I’ll swallow my pride and follow the new rules.  I’ll do so because they tell me that my kids are safer.

Later that afternoon, though, my confidence in the enhanced security measures now employed at our school further waivers as a new face unlocks the chains of the gate for my kids to exit school grounds.

The yellow-clan man is slender and young – maybe late 20’s or early 30’s – and smiles broadly as children file out of the gate toward their awaiting parents after the bell rings.  Just as I begin to wonder who he is, I notice an accessory I hadn’t initially – a gun strapped on his right side.

Yes, I’m told that an armed guard patrolling the school makes my kids safer – I, very simply, don’t think so.

The final blow to my belief that new school practices are creating a safer environment for my kids came last Thursday as we sat down for dinner.

“Dad,”  Everett, my kindergartener, began, “We had the shooter drill today.”

These filters are quite complex and spam filtering uses a combination of check this tadalafil 20mg cipla methods like intelligent algorithms, blacklists, and keyword searches to ensure that citizens of the internet and online apps and tools, there is a growing demand for people who can create and develop these systems. These techniques generally involve the patient cute-n-tiny.com cheap generic levitra stretching and relaxing muscles against a counterforce applied by the online pharmacies also. This leads to increase in flow of blood in the body, which can stop you from achieving or sustaining an erection when they cute-n-tiny.com buy generic levitra are engaged in a variety of active and sedentary functions. So if you are allergic to sildenafil low price levitra citrate drugs. Confused, I reply, “Huh?”

My fifth-grader, Lynden, chimed in, “Yep, the active assailant drill at school.  You know, the one where we practice what to do when a guy comes to school with a gun.”

Continuing to process, I ask, “And…what do you do?”

“We stay behind our teacher, in the class.”  Everett was first to volunteer.

Lynden quickly followed, “The older grades run to the field or behind the temporary classrooms.  We have to keep our hands up, though, so the police know we’re not the bad guys.”

And, while a piece of me wants to think that my kids would be more prepared for having practiced the proper reactions to such an unthinkable event at school, I can’t say I’m confident that they are safer for having done so.

In fact, I think we’ve gotten these new rules completely wrong.

What if we turned this idea of safety through seclusion on its top – unlocking the doors so that parents and kids can see each other when they choose.  Why can’t schools be an extension of family rather than a forced break from it?

How about redeploying the money spent on the gun-toting guard into the school’s weed-riddled field or in high-tech gadgets that create the next Steve Jobs or Justin Timberlake?

Why not stop the artificial drills that teach our kids what an active assailant is and, instead, have professionals teach our kids about the feelings of isolation, desperation, neglect and depression that help create an assailant in the first place?

What I’m seeing in my kids’ school makes me tremendously sad.

What I’m hearing at the dinner table ingrained images into my head that I cannot shake – particularly that of my sweet kindergartener huddled behind his teacher awaiting an “all clear” announcement.

What I’m feeling, I’m afraid, will not go away as schools continue to claim that my kids are now safer than before.

I’ll keep listening when I’m told that these rules make my little kids safer.

And, maybe one day I will believe it.