We gave an entire generation PTSD by letting their schools get shot up, repeatedly, and teaching them that they'd have to save themselves because no one else is coming for them. It's not a wonder they're rioting. They're so fucking sick of the violence.
I remember the first school shooting drill my school had about a year after columbine. The cops were giddy to do it and even set off smoke bombs in some hallways and made it a competition to see who could "survive". Basically had cops at certain entrances to say we were dead if they saw us.
Or if we walked into the smoke we were dead. In the end no one made it out and the principal took us all into the gym to chew us out for being so dumb we couldn't get out and then one of the cops sheepishly said they accidentally blocked off all the exits, so there was no way anyone could get out
When I was in senior year the "criminal justice" or whatever class ran an active shooter "drill" but forgot to tell the teachers in our remote upstairs hallway. The "fake" guns looked real so we really thought we were gonna die. We all hid because there was no escape route from the upper hall.
The teacher called the cops and everyone huddled in a corner trying to keep quiet for like 30 min. Anyway, once we found out it was a "drill" NO ONE ever apologized to us or acknowledged it happened and we had to return to class as normal. I think things like this are WAY under-reported.
Yeah the principal when this happened was a former sheriff. About 6 months after this he suddenly quit. We later found out it was because he slammed a student into a mirror in the bathroom and shattered it after the kid made some sort of snarky comment.
Yeah, like, at a weeklong camp I volunteered at for a few years, we *did* do 'armed intruder' drills to test hiding spots and evac routes off-site--but it was BEFORE THE KIDS WERE THERE.
reiterating: my high school did an active shooter drill so they could search lockers for dr*gs.
teachers/staff didn't know because it was for dr*gs.
we all thought we were gonna die that day cause the lockers slamming sounded like guns to a lot of us :(
yup, one of my schools did the same to me once.
the next time was only marginally better when they lined us all up against our lockers and had the drug dogs sniff and snarl at us.
still have classmates with permanent fears of dogs from it to this day, so.
i think i'm a little bit older than both of you, (jr in HS when Columbine happened) But, I have *very* clear memories of basically admin ordering the teachers to not let anyone out of their classes so they could search for stuff. There was a rumor that somoene had a gun in their truck too.
that felt a little word salad-y.
They made a PA announcement that all teachers were to prevent students from leaving their classroom so they could do locker searches. Not 100% sure if it was for drugs or weapons, but it was a little terrifying for my senior year.
oh yeah the whole "lockdown so we can search lockers" happened twice a year for me during high school
there at least usually wasn't anything major to it, but yeah.
I was in High School during Columbine as well. I remember schools cracking down on kids being mad (esp. autistic kids, who were scapegoated) and revoking open campus privileges so they could search lockers.
It became clear that what we as kids wanted didn't matter, only selling a grift to boomers.
The most oddly comedic thing was that they were less concerned about shooters and more about bombs for some reason. Kids got suspended for saying the word "bomb" out loud, no matter the context (i.e. "that song's the bomb").
Even the teachers knew it was bullshit, but did it because it was policy.
I was in high school during Columbine and it was openly known that nobody and nothing would be searched for drugs under any circumstances because the best way for the dean move up was to show the board that he ran a "drug free" school.
np! It's not a big problem if people do it here anyway but I like to remind people they don't have to be as on guard here as twitter or tiktok. Feels like less mental load maybe 😅
It contributed a non-zero amount into turning her into an open anarchist who wants to smash the system once she's big enough to do so (my words, not hers)
I started realizing how much i was thinking about where to go and how to hide/escape at my work.
And then to think of how kids and teens have to deal with this too…
there was a credible threat here in my town too that thankfully was stopped by the Police being called by an employee - they arrested the guy but his reasoning to threaten the place was to impress the girl who then called :/
they found 3 loaded handguns of various caliber
I've been in one shooting when i first graduated high school. It was my first day of college. It was the one down in Chattanooga, TN where the marine died. I was there. I was stuck outside and couldn't get in to safety. I didn't come out for HOURS until i saw people leaving the college campus
I taught for 10 yrs. My friends are shocked when I talk about knowing if I would run & which corner was the safest to hide a class in. I look at bathroom doors to see if they lock & whether the lights go out on their own. Normal people don't live like that but teachers need to evaluate all of it.
I've been in five different *active shooter* lockdowns and one active bomb lockdown across my academic career. I was six when the first one happened. One of the kids in a lower grade had divorcing parents. Her dad got mad about it, and came to school with a handgun to take her 'cause he lost custody
I had to barricade and cover my windows as a high school teacher, and decorate with hiding them in mind. We had active shooter lockdowns every time there was an armed robbery. I had to keep paper over all the windows because there wasn't a big enough counter for students to hide behind.
I had chairs thrown at colleagues, I worked in a moderate poverty area, and our buildings were decades old "temporary" structures. They were renovating the local middle school with a million dollar sound system. The hs football had a travel bus. I had to pay for my classrooms toilet paper and soap.
In high school, I stayed with a boyfriend for nine months because he had a thing for guns and mma, and I only broke up with him when I moved 3000 miles away.
so uh, I'm gonna stop you here because at this point you've left the point of relevancy and entered trauma dumping stage, to which I say - I'm deeply sorry. You should absolutely talk to someone about all this at some point.
