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NPR Education
2 Big Teachers Unions Call For Rethinking Student Involvement In Lockdown Drills
Anya Kamenetz
February 11, 2020
Ryan Pascal, a 17-year-old student at Palos Verdes High School near Los
Angeles, says when her school holds active shooter drills, it's
"chaos." The first time it happened, not long after the shooting at
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in 2018, rumors
started flying over Snapchat and text that the school was really under
attack.
"We had some students trying to stack up desks to blockade the door. We
had some students sort of joking around because they weren't sure how
to handle this. There are other students who are very, very afraid."
On top of all the other stresses of high school, she says, some
students are now on constant alert: "When the little bell before an
announcement happens, or when the fire alarm goes off, you can see this
fear in students' faces as they wonder, is this going to be a lockdown?
Is this a drill? What's happening? There's so much anxiety just by a
little trigger like that."
About 95% of American public schools conduct some form of regular
active shooter safety drill — sometimes called a lockdown or active
threat drill — according to the National Center for Education
Statistics. But concerns are growing that these drills have not been
proven effective in preventing violence and that they may even
traumatize some students.
Now the advocacy group Everytown For Gun Safety is joining with the
American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association
— the nation's largest education unions, with several million members —
in calling for schools to reassess the use of lockdown drills.
In a white paper out Tuesday, the groups say they do not recommend
active shooter training for students. And if schools do choose to do
these drills with students, they shouldn't be unnecessarily realistic
and schools should give plenty of warning. Plus, they should be done
with age-appropriateness and sensitivity toward children with special
needs or those who have experienced trauma.
The group Moms Demand Action for Gun Safety in America, part of
Everytown, focuses on raising awareness about gun violence. But founder
Shannon Watts said she was increasingly hearing from parents whose
children were terrified by active shooter drills. So, she started to
look at emerging evidence that "these drills cause trauma, whether it's
anxiety or depression, sleeplessness, worsening school performance in
kids." There are reports, Watts says, of drills getting "over the top"
with things like teachers being shot with pellet guns. "When we have a
fire drill in a school, we don't set a fire in the hallway."
Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers,
says making schools "safe and welcoming" is her membership's "No. 1
priority."
"Those terrifying and traumatizing drills — they have no basis in fact and they harm more than they have ever helped."
In a 2019 research paper, James H. Price and Jagdish Khubchandani found
a lack of empirical evidence in favor of active shooter drills and
other "hardening" measures used in schools. Partly this is because gun
violence in school remains very rare.
And yet, the school security industry is worth a reported $3 billion.
Guy Grace with the Partner Alliance for Safer Schools, an educator and
industry partnership, insists that twice a year active shooter drills
for students are an important piece of violence prevention.
"It's not about scaring kids or scaring staff. It's about empowering
staff and being able to respond to a multitude of situations."
But he agrees that drills should not simulate violence — and that they should never be unannounced.
"You should not do drills without a warning. It shouldn't be all pure chaos."
Shannon Watts says there are steps that schools can take to prevent gun
violence, and they don't necessarily start with active shooter drills.
Her organization wants schools to focus instead on prevention through
threat assessment and expanded mental health services, as recommended
by the U.S. Secret Service, as well as by spreading the word about
secure gun storage at home.
"Schools are a very important place to talk about gun violence
prevention," Watts tells NPR, "because about 4.6 million children in
this country have easy access to guns that are not secure, meaning
they're loaded, they're unlocked, they're easily accessible."
Guns at home should be the focus, Watts says, because studies show most
school shooters accessed firearms from the home of family, friends or
relatives. And conversely, schools remain some of the very safest
places for kids, who are most likely to encounter gun violence — though
still rarely — in domestic situations.
Moms Demand Action worked with teachers unions on the passage of a
resolution that requires Los Angeles Unified School District, the
second-largest in the country, to send home a letter for parents to
read and sign about their responsibilities on gun storage.
Abbey Clements was a second-grade teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary
School in 2012 when a shooter killed 26 people, including 20 students.
She is an AFT member and an activist with Everytown. She says her
district in Newtown, Conn., where she still teaches, doesn't use
lockdown drills as part of their security measures today.
Instead, her district focuses on training staff to keep kids safe. And,
she says, "If that is good enough for Newtown, shouldn't that be good
enough for all districts across the country?"
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