School lockdowns are a reality of today’s society
School is back in full swing and our School Resource Officers are roaming the hallways alongside teachers and students to promote and support a safe learning environment.
One of the areas we collaborate on with the schools is the practice of lockdown drills. This is an area that I have watched closely in every jurisdiction I have worked. I make it a point to personally get out to as many lockdown drills as I can to get a sense of what the local attitude is on the drill because lockdowns need to be taken seriously.
It has been my experience everywhere I have worked there is some resistance to lockdown drills. Sometimes an individual teacher believes their lesson is too precious to take the time to do the drill or they treat it as a joke. Again, based on my observations elsewhere, what is even more frustrating for the police, is the individual who scoffs at a lockdown drill is the same person who won’t blink an eye when it comes time for a fire drill. This may sometimes be the case at the principal or Board level but, yet again, they don’t skip a beat to run multiple fire drills in a school year in good and inclement weather.
I am pleased to report that in Lethbridge my observation has been the staff and students at the lockdown drills I have attended appear to fully understand the need to do them. However, people move and retire so every year there is a new crop of educators and administrators. I am writing this for every student, parent, teacher, principal, administrator, grandparent and citizen in general to reinforce lockdown drills are equally as important as fire drills.
There hasn’t been a fire in a Canadian or American school that has resulted in mass casualties since the late 1950s. Tragically, that is far from the case with mass shooting events at schools. In January 2016, Canada observed the tragedy in La Loche, Saskatchewan that left four people dead — two of them teachers at their school. Last week in Salida, Colorado the Salida High School was on high alert after a student threatened to carry out a shooting, and last Thursday, Freeman High School near Spokane, Wash. was the scene of a school shooting that left one person dead and three injured when a student brought a gun to school to deal with another student who had allegedly bullied him.
Close to home, there was the Taber High School shooting in 1999. Sadly, events like this are occurring every year in North America.
In the Freeman High School shooting, the media is now reporting that the shooter had let it be known to acquaintances and on social media that he intended to carry out the shooting. This is common place in most events of this nature. Somebody saw or heard something but did not pass it on to school staff or police.
We are fortunate in southern Alberta to have Kevin Cameron and the Canadian Centre for Threat Assessment and Trauma Response (CCTATR) located here in Lethbridge. The Violence Threat Risk Assessment Tool (VTRA) that Cameron and his team have developed is recognized worldwide as a tool to identify at-risk youth to create an opportunity for intervention before tragedies like the recent Freeman shooting occur.
The Lethbridge Police Service is proud to work with area schools and utilize the VTRA methods.
A key component of this is people pointing out behaviour, comments and social media posts in which people suggest they may harm people. The takeaway for students, parents and educators is if you notice any of these — SAY SOMETHING! School and police resources will work together with other professionals to address the issue and get tools in place to help the involved people.
Nevertheless, even with tools like VTRA, schools and police must be prepared for the worst. In a fire drill the school is evacuated to minimize risks caused by smoke and flames and to enable firefighters to deploy everything they need, how they need to, in order to fight the fire. In a lockdown drill, the police need to minimize the risk from an armed assailant. The best practice at this time is if students and staff are caught inside the ✦school — as practised in lockdowns — is to lock the door, hide and be quiet. This allows the police to deploy and do our job to locate and neutralize the threat as quickly as possible.
In no way is this article intended to fear monger. It is to create understanding among parents, students, teachers, staff, administrators and citizens at large that these drill are incredibly important and have the potential to save lives.
Events like LaLoche, Freeman and Taber are stark reminders that these scenarios are real and do not discriminate. The reality we face as a society is it is unlikely a year will go by where there isn’t a school shooting in North America.
Continually assessing best practices and rehearsing lockdown drills can help us all prepare — and save lives.