If today was not a DRILL I would be DEAD...

...as would most of the students in my class.

Even as I type this the gravity of the situation still gets me all worked up; hands shaking, pulse raising and on the verge of tears. So hear is how it all went down...

Shortly after the bell for second period to be over rang I was walking towards a student I wanted to speak to. This student just enrolled in my class after having a checkered past. He has been quite polite, done all of his homework, and even volunteered to put problems on the board. I just wanted to encourage him to keep it up, and tell him that I was impressed with his hard work thus far. As I am walking to him one of our School Resource Officers (SRO, a police officer that we have on campus), and a counselor that we have on campus from an off campus agency came storming into my room yelling at the students to get out of the way/get out of the room, and were walking over to that student. Bad teacher thought confession: my thought was "oh no, really, he was doing so good, what happened," have faith teacher! They were walking in his direction because they wanted to get to me, who happened to be next to him.

The SRO hands me a folded up piece of paper and says "this is what you just saw, what do you do?"

I had talked to our administrator in charge of lockdown drills about when we would have a lockdown. He said that it was still going to happen and that he heard that they have been going to teachers to have them call the drill. I asked what to do, he said to call the office and report what happened. I asked about calling 911, he said the office would.

So I briefly scan the paper and see the word "SHOOTING." As a result of the conversation and seeing that word I know that I need to get to my phone to call the office. I think "Lockdown, that means hide under the desk and get concealed in the room." With that knowledge I tell the students, to get in the room, don't go anywhere. My reflections on whether that was the right move later.

I run to my office door to get to my phone. Every step of the way I have the SRO shouting in my ear "what are you doing, why are you doing that?" As I get to the door I realize that my door is locked, yeah paranoid teacher I do not want the high school students stealing my personal stuff. So I then run across the room to where my jacket it that has my keys in the coat pocket. The keys get heavy so I don't like to wear them around my neck...they hurt my neck. They were in my coat pocket, but my classroom got hot so I took it off.

As I am running across the room to where my coat is, which happens to be where my new phone is (as far as I have been informed it is not functioning yet, I will be quite upset if it is functioning, but haven't received official word that it is working), the SRO is again yelling at me "what are you doing, why are you doing that, why aren't you using that phone." As I shout that it doesn't work I reach my office door and begin to try and open it. My hands are shaking so much that it takes forever for me to get the key in the door. And yet still I have the SRO in my ear shouting "what are you doing, why are you doing that?"

I make it to my office, shaking like there is no tomorrow, I pick up my phone and dial 0 to reach the main office to share with them what is going on. But the phone just keeps ringing, and ringing, and ringing, and ringing. Holy moly so much ringing. As it keeps ringing the SRO is shouting at me

SRO: "why aren't you calling the office,"
Me "I am"
SRO: "Why aren't they picking up?"
Me: thought...how the hell should I know
SRO: "Don't you have a direct line?
Me: "I'm calling it"

All of this while the phone is ringing, and ringing, and ringing. Oh the insanity! So I decide as the phone is ringing for the front office I decide to try and call an administrator too, maybe they can get the message to the office faster than all the RINGING! I pull open the drawer that has my purse which has my phone in it. But, in order for the drawer to stay shut it must be locked...it will not open! And the RINGING that will not stop.

As I am waiting for someone to pick up at the office, I am shaking as I try to dial an administrator. I only have the numbers in my phone for two of the four administrators in my phone, the principal and one of the assistant principals. For some reason my search goes to the assistant principal's name and not the principal's. Turns out the principal was not even on campus that day so I picked the right number to call. I dialed her number as the RINGING just kept going and going. Finally, the attendance office picked.

"Attendance office how can I help." You reach the attendance office when the front office is busy and they are unable to pick up the phone. But, finally the RINGING has stopped and I can finally read the scenario and begin the lockdown.

Here is a paraphrase of what the scenario was. Not sure where it ended up. In the mayhem tests ended up flying all over, my jacket ended up on the floor, and honestly I have no idea where the scenario paper went.

One of my students pulled out a gun and began shooting. He ran out of the room. He is wearing Chargers attire.

I remember it being longer, but that was the gist of what it said. Ok, did my part. I run to the door and start yelling "Lockdown, get in" and usher every student I can into my room. Finally over the intercom they announce a lockdown. Then I go into my room and tell everyone to get under the tables. A student is putting up some paper that I got to conceal the windows. However, I got it to cut in half to cover both windows. But, I never got around to cutting it, and by the time I realize that it is not cut and I have nothing for the other window the paper is up and there is definitely not enough time to cut it in half. Ok, I can do this, I can get the window covered. I pull out the trash bag from the trash can and try to hang that. Yeah, no. I then have some papers, but individual 8 1/2 by 11 sheets of papers are not going to do the trick. Looking at my room I hope for the best and where the students are you do not really have a direct line of sight to them, so hopefully it will be ok.

Heart still pounding I instruct the kids to get under their tables and remind them to be quite. Now finally the situation begins to sink in. Even though I still have a room full of kids, the emotions begin to take over. I e-mailed the administrator in charge of lockdowns asking if I could be part of the debrief. No. My heart sank even more. I ended up at the debrief, my guess is that he did not know that I was the one that called the lockdown.

I e-mailed my Dan. Since it was at the start of class he was able to e-mail me for a little bit so I could talk about the situation. I tell him what happened. I tell him what I said to the office, and tears began to well up in my eyes, as they are now as I am typing this 9 hours later. Mind you, I still have a room full of students. They are starting to get louder and I have to tell them to be silent. They begin to notice that I might be crying, and are talking about it on the sly. Through this I am talking to Dan. He is trying to calm me down, while being upset that they are putting me through this.

Finally, salvation, the lockdown is over. I turn on my PowerPoint for the next class, open my door and head to a teacher who I think has off the next period. No such luck. I quickly tell her what happened and another teacher comes in and I share with her too. That second teacher that comes in mentions that she has all the lockdown procedures and asks if I want her to print them out. I say sure, but all I can think is that I know the procedures, I have written the procedures before (when I was the Dean at the middle school a few years ago I was in charge of the safety plan).

Then I get back to my class and try to start it. As I am doing that a student asks why I got all upset, because it was just a drill after all. I then ask them if they want to know why I got so upset. They said yes. I explained how I got the paper with the situation, and what it said, and just keep saying how scary that would be. I ask them to imagine what it would be like if it wasn't a drill and there really was a person running through our room shooting. As I am tearing up, yet again, I look up and notice there is a security guard in the room and ask him to watch my room.

I then begin to walk down the hall. Where to, I have no idea. All I know is that I can not be in my room in front of my students right now. I think to call Dan, but realize my phone is in my class. Man, not my day. So I keep walking. Students I have this year, and had last year are passing me in the hall and say hi. I can't say anything to them because I am starting to cry. AGAIN. I then decide a course of action, I will find a math teacher who has off during this period and teach my lesson and I will debrief with the administration. If they can't make it happen I will. I walk up and down the halls, and up and down three flights of stairs and every teacher had students.

As I walk to the first floor I see the Aide I have that period walking in. I ask him for a favor to watch the class and try and run the lesson. We go into the room, I show him what needs to be done, tell the students that I will be checking homework on Monday and as I am saying that an assistant principal comes in and says they need me for the debrief. I knew they would, and I definitely needed it. When I was the Dean at a local middle school I went through a few debriefings of lockdown drills, therefore I knew who would be there; several police officers, all the administrators, security, head custodian, head of security from the district...the whole team.

Doing it before we all walked in together and sat to debrief the meeting. But this time, they are all in there as I walk in and stare at me. I then look over at the two people who came in and gave me the situation and started it all, I tell them this is probably one of the scariest things I have seen at school. They then ask what happened and I shared the story of what happened.  Not as much detail, but the story that you heard. The SRO and the counselor guy (he was the one that picked my room, thanks guy), said several times that I did fine, I did what I was supposed to. Ok, I didn't totally blow it. I didn't screw it up completely. That made me feel a little better, but still, thinking about the situation if it was real, wow. I made it through, but what would I do if there really was a student shooting in my room?

After the debrief I headed back to my classroom. Still a teacher, still have to teach my lesson. The students are not doing much, and are upset that I come back and they don't get free time anymore. I make it a quick lesson, I only have 8 minutes, and try to get through the lesson. The next two classes I don't have much energy to get through and teach the lesson.

I want to teach, but all I can think of is "what if this was real, I would be dead, my students would be dead, did I do it right?" The goal they had was for us to call the office so we could be put on lockdown, but thinking about it, if there was a shooter in my room would I really tell my students to come back in? Would I really call the office first or try to talk to the student and keep the others first before calling the office? All these thoughts are running through my head during the last 2 periods of the day and I try to be a good teacher, but I just feel like I am in a fog. What if this was real?

Through the rest of the day several people said things that were encouraging:
-The counselor that picked me to call the lockdown drill said that I should be proud of myself for making it through, because at another school a teacher just gives up and calls it quits during the scenario. I made it through. Shaking, tearing up and all.
-One of the teachers I talked to initially after the drill was over said she was glad she wasn't picked because she would have freaked out. Yeah, I did. Then later after she looked to give me the lockdown procedures of what to do in this situation, then realized that that there are no directions for what to do in that situation. Yeah, I know. She then told me that if anything went wrong it should be the administration's fault because they didn't prepare us. My thoughts exactly, but for the future what do I do?
-The teacher in the hall across from me said they were talking about who to pick and decided to pick me because they thought I could handle it.

I guess I  handled it, but did I really handle it correctly? That question keeps running circles in my brain. Did I really do the right thing? If a student was shooting in my room, don't you think they would probably shoot at the teacher first? So if this was real I would not be sitting here. I would be dead right now.

For most of my teaching career I have lead students through  a lockdown drill. I have even seen from the police department the riot gear they would wear on campus in the even of a real lock down. I have seen students with weapons on campus, and have used the (non deadly) weapons on campus (yes during a lock down... the PR after that was fun). We have even had lockdowns at the school I am at as a result of OUTSIDE community actions, yeah the school backs up to some gang territory, but this was the most emotional of all the experiences. The situation was thrown in my face. It was reality. A student wearing Chargers attire was shooting in my classroom. If it was real, I and some of my students would probably be dead. That is such a sobering thought.

Yes, I know this was a drill, but being through this I feel so much more for all the people involved in these events. My situation was over once the "All CLEAR" was called, but their situation was not. My situation was not real, but what if it had been? What if there really was a shooter in my classroom? I would probably be dead, several of my students would probably be dead, and that is all I can think about. In talking with the counselor who came into my room to have me call the lockdown, said that this was just a drill to teach people what to do in the event that it really happened.

In high school we had bomb threat drills, we would evacuate...would that really be the safest in a bomb threat, but that is neither here nor there.  In actual life and death situations there was the Columbine shooting, Santana shooting, and Sandy Hook shootings to name a few. And close to home, there was an elementary school that had an outside person came on to campus. There were no casualties, however a few students were wounded.

All this shows that it could happen. A student could run through my room shooting with a gun. Luckily for me this was just a drill and an actual shooting like at those schools. I have practiced many drills in my tenure of teaching, and it has been nothing more than a hoop to jump through. But this made it real.  I could be dead. Many of my students could be dead. I just keep thinking what if this was real, what would I have done. It is so hard since any choice you make could have life or death consequences. I could help to save my students or I could cause their demise. That is what is getting me. If I make the wrong call I could be the cause of many of my students dying. I can't even type that without crying. And in reality, while it has not happened on campus (only near campus), these past shootings show that it could happen.

I think that is it for now. I hope at the end of reading this you can give teachers a little more grace. We go into this profession to teach the future, little do we know that we may be having to save it.