When School Shootings Become Expected

Mindset of an educator working in an era of on-campus violence

I keep sneakers under my desk at work, which is efficient because having them there forces me to change into my workout clothes before the work day is over so that I go straight to the gym and avoid even making eye contact with my couch. The other benefit is that I can run for my life if there is an active shooter on campus and I happened to wear heels that day.

Every morning, I scan the quad of the high school where a good percentage of our 2,200 students start their days, which is good because it’s important to greet students and wave to colleagues to foster a sense of community. It’s also good to get a sense of which direction I would run in and how many students I could get to run with me to safety.

My coworker and I invested in these little rubber door stoppers. They’re cool because we can prop open our doors to give our students a welcoming feeling between our two counseling offices. Their other purpose is to serve as a secondary force to keep our doors shut, even once we use our blue lockdown keys to secure our offices in the event of a threat on campus. I may want to do something decorative to cover the glass window on my door, too. A calming environment and eliminating a direct line of sight are key when styling an office suite.

We stayed late at work a couple of nights last spring for A.L.I.C.E. training, which allowed me to interact with some of my fellow staff members who I do not always get a chance to work with, given the size of our school. A.L.I.C.E. stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate, by the way. Bonding over shared fears is still bonding.

During a shelter-in-place drill this fall, a student in my ninth grade homeroom raised her hand to ask if she could just jump out the window in that scenario. Another student asked about the connecting doors between classrooms and what we were going to do about them. Academic takeaway though? They’re comfortable participating in class discussions.

Last year my step-daughter, 13 at the time, told me she knew exactly where she would run “if it happened” and knew the streets behind the woods near her school well enough to find her way to somewhere familiar. At least that means I have another reason to hug her and her sister a little tighter before they leave for school in the morning.

Noises in the hallway startle me at times. But at least that tells me that all of those concerts at the Palladium as a teenager didn’t affect my hearing. Take that, Dad.

“Reflective Practice” is one of the professional culture standards educators measure ourselves against when we do our annual supervision and evaluation process. In the past few years, I’ve had an incredible opportunity to reflect on how brave I would be and how many students I could save and if I would have a chance to call my mom and tell her I love her and I’m sorry she might have to bury another daughter.

But I’m being ridiculous.

It’s ridiculous to go into the locked staff bathroom and wonder if the little student desk there, home to tissues and an air freshener, could barricade the door if I hear gunshots in the hallway. (Enhanced problem-solving skills) It’s pretty ridiculous to wonder if I could make it across the hall to Mike and Tom’s classroom, since they have windows and I do not. (Team-building, ice-breaking trust falls) It’s dramatic of me to second guess “letting” a student go to the bathroom because what if we have to lock the door before they get back because an attacker is on our floor, in our hallway, near my door? (Effective classroom management) It’s crazy of me to consider switching careers because, even though these tragedies occur elsewhere, they seem to happen in schools more frequently, even if they are categorized as rare. (Professional development)

What’s more ridiculous is that there have been 44 school shootings in 2019 alone. But hey, I’m just an educator, looking over her shoulder, mentally reviewing escape routes, wondering if that was a scream or a high-pitched laugh down the hall, all while writing quarterly IEP progress notes. Multitasking at its finest.