"Lockdown drills" refers to practice sessions during which people, usually students in schools or employees in workplaces, learn what actions to take and where to go in the event of a dangerous situation, such as an active shooter or other threat.
Full definition
North Carolina law requires traditional public schools to practice
lockdown drills at least once a year to prepare if an intruder ever came on campus.
Schools also wrestled with how to proceed
with lockdown drills, which have become as routine as fire drills as students prepare for the possibility of a shooting.
Yet a traditional
lockdown drill doesn't teach students what to do when they come face to face to with a gunman, and that has led to some new approaches.
Their swift action is credited by law enforcement with saving the lives of many children that day, and school leaders have cited
regular lockdown drills as a major reason staff and students were prepared.
A South Florida mother has started a movement designed to keep students calm
during lockdown drills following the tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. - A South Florida mother has started a movement designed to keep students calm during
lockdown drills following the tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
Now the generation of students that grew up
performing lockdown drills in school are echoing those calls in their own schools and communities.
The Broward County school district has been holding
annual lockdown drills at its schools for more than 10 years.
The FBI's 2013 report, published with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, also urged schools to consider that
typical lockdown drills may not enough.
Since Columbine, 32 states have passed laws requiring schools to
conduct lockdown drills or some form of emergency drill to keep students safe from intruders.
Lockdown drills such as these are ubiquitous in schools these days, but they take on new significance in the wake of a horrific school shooting such as the one in Parkland, Fla., in which a gunman killed 17 people...
Whilst a number of schools are carrying out
adhoc lockdown drills, if a serious incident does arise, a pre-recorded alarm and message is played from a tannoy, with pupils getting under tables, teachers locking classroom doors, lights being turned off and window shutters pulled down — but is this enough?
As of 2016, almost 95 percent of students in U.S. public schools practice some sort
of lockdown drill according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
School leaders in Ames had prepared students for the event of a gunman in the building by
practicing lockdown drills, but they wondered whether they were doing everything they could.
Across the country, students who are accustomed to
regular lockdown drills to prepare for the possibility of a mass shooting have staged walkouts and issued calls for strengthening gun control laws.
Some of the questions parents have about school safety may include how
school lockdown drills are implemented, what other plans are in place to help kids stay safe, and how to handle kids» questions or anxiety about school safety.
I had always thought our school
lockdown drills were pointless; I mean, a shooting could never happen in New York, right?
In the most recent data, for 2015 - 16, «
lockdown drills» — a broader category that NCES used for that year's survey — were being conducted in 94.6 percent of schools.
«I know that my school, we go through fire drills every month and we have not had
our lockdown drill yet this year,» junior Carson Abt told President Donald Trump during a meeting at the White House after the shooting.
We feel shitty when we learn that kids today can't grow up without participating in
lockdown drills — drills that, when I was a kid, were purely preventative and not based on real incidents and real lives that have since been lost in deadly school shootings.
Practicing
lockdown drills is in the spirit of something we call coping ahead, being prepared, and I agree that it can be a positive experience.
An East Quogue Elementary School teacher who played the «pretend perpetrator» in
a lockdown drill is suing the school district and the Town of Southampton after, she says, town police threw her to the floor and handcuffed her.
Schools already have to stage four
lockdown drills and eight evacuation drills a year.
Lockdown drills are ubiquitous in schools these days, but teachers say they're especially unnerving in the wake of a horrific school shooting such as the one in Parkland, Fla..
Huddersfield's Reinwood Junior School is one of several in West Yorkshire which carries out
lockdown drills, with pupils and staff practising twice a year.
Veteran teacher Kristin Luebbert described
a lockdown drill at her school in the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Ensuring your staff and students are well - prepared (by way of professional development training and
lockdown drills) will better equip your community members to respond.
Increased federal and state expectations, angry parents, discipline issues, bus problems,
lockdown drills, and daily challenges are just some of the issues principals face on a daily basis.
«We can not let our fate be decided by politicians who have never known what it is like to go through
a lockdown drill just days after 17 students had their lives taken, knowing that you could be next, and there's nothing that your government wants to do about it,» Summons said, to cheers.
«I know that my school, we go through fire drills every month and we have not had
our lockdown drill yet this year,» junior Carson Abt told President Donald Trump during a meeting at the White House after the shooting.
Consider hiring a pro to help you create an evacuation or
lockdown drill, or seek training on decision - making skills in a crisis situation.