Hi Phairston27!

When I was in high school, we would have fake drills at school. While we thought it was fun, it was also very educational. Our town’s swat team would come to the school and would wear vests that would detect “shots.” Imagine the vests from laser tag. One of the police officers would be the gunman threatening the school. He would “shoot” up the school, the the other police officers showed us what to do to find safety or safe places to hide. While they were doing this, some of their vests would light up, and they would hit the floor. By the end of it, they brought some of the police officers out on stretchers and some students too! They made it look as real as possible. They started doing this my freshman year, the year after the Columbine High School massacre. We did this every year until I graduated. I’m not sure if that school still does that or not.

I think more schools doing this would be very helpful in keeping our children aware and know how to keep themselves safe. Just like fire and tornado drills, our children need to know what to do in case of emergency. I know my children’s schools do not even do this. Also, as you said, having more police officers at schools would be very helpful. To my knowledge, all of the schools in our community and nearby communities only have one police officer at the school. I think having a few extra would be a wonderful idea!

We always think something like that would never happen to us or our children…until it happens. We can never be too prepared. Great topic!

littlenikki318