Since I can remember, there have always been days where the teacher locks the door, closes the blinds, and turns off the lights, while students cram into a dusty, back corner of the classroom. And though the overhead announcement assures that it is, in fact, a drill, the darkness still gives rise to anxious whispers and the nervous shifting of fabric against carpet. After a few minutes of staring at the door, the handle would rattle, sending gasps throughout the classroom, before an announcement notified us that the drill was over.
To my knowledge, this was the typical course of action that we were supposed to take in the event of an active shooter scenario. And while it never made sense to me why sitting in a corner, hoping no one would enter the room, was the method of choice for district officials, heading into high school, this was what I was prepared to do should the need arise.
What I’ve recently discovered is that the policy for responding to an active shooter has apparently changed over the years. Now, instead of simply hiding in the classroom until the lock down is lifted, we are now supposed to adopt a more situation-specific procedure commonly referred to as run-fight-hide.
This means that when the school is initially placed under lock down, the classroom is locked and the lights are switched off. However, if the intruder is far enough away for it to be considered safe enough to exit the building, then evacuating campus is the next course of action. On the other hand, if the intruder is trying to enter the building, then fighting back or throwing things like, say, a chair, is a far better option than cowering in the corner.
This run, fight, hide procedure has apparently been included in the federal government’s guide for creating high quality school emergency operations plans starting in 2013, and has since been implemented in school districts across San Diego County since 2016, yet I had only just learned about it through my own research.
While I understand that an off-campus evacuation makes more comprehensive intruder drills implausible in practice, I believe it is necessary to at least clarify to students that the drills they had rehearsed throughout their academic careers are outdated.
At the very least, there should be some sort of continuity in how teachers rehearse these drills. I’ve had teachers who have sat us down and gone over every step of their plan, from locking the door, evacuating further back into the hallway if necessary, and even using the trash cans as a makeshift bathroom should the lock down extend further into the day. But I’ve also had teachers who don’t address the issue at all. Each classroom seems to have its own policy that contradicts the policy of another.
What we need is to be better informed about how to be as safe as possible in the event of an active shooter, and we need our teachers to reinforce that information in their own classrooms. This shouldn’t even be something we need to learn, but the sad reality is that it is, and if the updated policy is what’s going to keep us as safe as possible, then it is necessary that students are made aware of it.