Fear lingers after unannounced drill

Lake Brantley High students still shaken by ‘Code Red’ confusion

Miryam Elshaer said the nightmare replayed in her head as she tried sleeping last Thursday, hours after her school had an unannounced “Code Red” drill warning of an active shooter.

In the dream, a voice came over the loudspeaker announcing a “Code Red.” Everybody ran, but her brother got injured. She woke up. As she fell back asleep, she had the same nightmare — but this time, the casualty was her friend.

“It was situation after situation of somebody I know getting hurt,” said Miryam, 17. “And when I woke up, I was like, ‘I don’t want to be back at school.’”

The Lake Brantley High School senior is one of several students who told the Orlando Sentinel they were traumatized after the Dec. 6 drill prompted them to hide in closets and locker rooms, not knowing whether there was a real gunman on the Altamonte Springs campus.

The chaotic reaction prompted the Seminole County Sheriff ’s Office to change its policy for conducting “Code Red” drills. But a spokesman for the school district said it’s important to conduct drills that aren’t announced ahead of time, so that students will treat them seriously.

“Our goal is strictly to train the kids, administration and staff to prepare for a real scenario, God forbid if there ever is one,” said spokesman Michael Lawrence. “We don’t want to traumatize them, but we do have to have the reasonable expectation that this is the world we live in currently.”

‘A recipe for disaster’

Dr. Kimberly Renk, a child psychologist, said unannounced drills like the one conducted at Lake Brantley are “a recipe for disaster.”

“To lead kids to believe a bad

person is going to shoot them is kind of the wrong approach,” said Renk, who is also an associate professor at the University of Central Florida’s Department of Psychology. “I think the kids need to be prepared, but they don’t need to be scared for their lives.”

Renk said one of the main criteria for a post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosis is that a person fears for his or her life — regardless of whether the person has actually been in a dangerous situation, such as a mass shooting.

“If you’re just conducting a drill and causing hysteria, that’s not going to help anybody,” she said.

Lawrence said counselors are available on campus for any students who need them.

Florida law requires school districts to hold exercises preparing for scenarios such as natural disasters, fires and active shooters. However, specific details about how the drills are conducted — including whether they are announced as drills — are left up to each individual school district.

The stakes of practicing for an active shooter situation are high.

The lack of a coherent policy and adequate training regarding “Code Red” situations was one of the central failures pinpointed by the commission that dissected the response to the Feb. 14 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, according to a report by the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

Schools vary in how they do drills

School districts in Central Florida use differing approaches to drills.

In Orange and Volusia counties, school officials announce imminent-threat drills are only practice as soon as they begin, spokespeople for the school districts said. However, that’s not the case at Osceola or Brevard county schools, spokespeople said.

On Tuesday, five days after the drill at Lake Brantley High School, Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lemma said his department will no longer conduct exercises in a similar manner.

“To prevent a recurrence of what occurred on the campus of Lake Brantley High School, effective immediately when an unannounced drill is conducted we will notify everyone (faculty, staff, students, and parents) at that very moment that what is occurring is only a drill and not a real threat,” Lemma said in a statement.

The day after the drill, Lake Brantley junior Sabrina Bonadio said she was sitting in class around the same time the exercise was conducted when a voice came over the loudspeaker.

The announcement was mundane, asking for someone to go to the front office — but she said her whole class stopped what they were doing and froze in fear.

“My first reaction was anger,” said Bonadio, 16. “No one really talked about the emotional impact, which I feel like is more longer-lasting. I feel like [administrators] never really recognized that people had panic attacks.”

Joelle Wittig, a 17-year-old junior, said sitting in her classroom and waiting during the drill made her realize how vulnerable her class would be if there were a real threat.

“There’s nothing we can really do to avoid a situation and get out and be safe,” she said. “That was a scary realization for me.”

‘I could’ve died today’

Lawrence, the Seminole school district spokesman, said a combination of unrelated events before and after the drill prompted the confusion.

At 10:21 that morning, a voice came over the school’s loudspeakers announcing the start of the “Code Red,” which indicates imminent danger such as the presence of an active shooter but did not say the threat wasn’t real.

At the same time, teachers received an automated

text message: “Active Shooter reported at Brantley / Building 1/ Building 2 and other buildings by B Shafer at 10:21:45. Initiate a Code Red Lockdown.”

Miryam said her AP Stats teacher moved from the front of the room to block the door. She and other students spoke of panic attacks and sobbing during the 20-minute drill, though Lawrence said similar drills had gone off without a problem in the past.

A second scare happened during the school’s first lunch, when an assistant principal came over the loudspeaker to thank students for their behavior during the exercise.

Lawrence said a combination of the loud noise in the cafeteria, construction on the campus and a news helicopter overhead led to some students hearing only the words “Code Red.” A student also posted on Snapchat a screenshot of the message that teachers had received during the drill.

Miryam said the confusion caused students to flee in a panic. At that point, she said, she was “waiting for a gunshot.”

“It took a lot of people a lot of time to process what was happening,” she said. “In my head I was like, ‘Oh my god I could’ve died today.’”

The first indication parents received that the drill was only an exercise came in the form of a message posted to the school’s Facebook page at 11:12 a.m., 51 minutes after the “Code Red” began. Dozens of angry parents commented on the status, asking why they weren’t made aware sooner.

The post has since been deleted.

Lawrence said the drill was purposefully conducted when the school’s principal, Dr. Trent Daniel, was away from campus at a district meeting. He said the timing of the drill was meant to mirror the circumstances of the February mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which happened when principal Ty Thompson was away from campus.

Daniel’s absence contributed to the delay in letting parents know about the drill, Lawrence said.

Miryam said she now scans every classroom for an exit as soon as she walks in.

“My brain is like, ‘What can I use to defend myself? Who can defend us? How is the classroom set up? Where can I run if someone comes through the door?’”

“My first reaction was anger. No one really talked about the emotional impact, which I feel like is more longer-lasting. I feel like [administrators] never really recognized that people had panic attacks.” Sabrina Bonadio, Lake Brantley High School junior