It’s something that I say to my kids EVERY SINGLE DAY as I drop them off at school. I have the three kids at three different schools this year and at each drop off it’s always the same. Every day I pray that my kids are safe at school, that they have a wonderful day, play with their friends and are out of harm’s way.
Growing up, my biggest concern was the test that I had coming up or if so and so would play with me today. Going to school was safe and a place that you could go to see your friends. Unfortunately today, it’s not quite the same.
Just the other day I got an email from Zoe’s teacher saying that they were going to have a lockdown drill. It totally slipped my mind until I thought I was late dropping her off. I got her in the door on time and gave her a quick prompt and told her that she was going to have a lockdown drill. She quickly grabbed her red folder and her La Croix for her teacher and went on her way. The day went on as usual and when I picked her up from school I asked her how her day was. She answered really good, who she had played with and how her lunch was just mediocre. I then asked her about her lockdown drill. To my surprise, she was actually into telling me the details. Mind you Zoe is 5 and this is how she said it went. She heard the special bell and she was instructed to go into her classroom. Her teacher then proceeded to lock the doors and the kids had to find a hiding spot. She told me that all of her friends had to be quiet so that the teacher could explain to them what was going on. She said she had to hide for however long the teacher said to and had to be quiet. She also mentioned that if the special bell had gone off while she was outside, that she’d have to go to the nearest classroom and that it didn’t have to be her classroom, but the teacher there would help her. She didn’t seem to be worried about it. I then asked her, why does the special alarm go off? She paused and said if someone bad is on our school and everybody needs to be safe.
My heart hurts. I send everyone that I love to a different school every single day, my husband included and just hope that everyone comes home. I never used to answer unknown numbers but for the past 4 years, I answer every call during school hours. Every single one. Just this past year, my husband sent me a text saying “Don’t freak out, I don’t know if it’s real but we’re on lockdown.” WTF. My heart dropped. Not long before that, there had been an incident at his school that was properly handled before it was too late. But this is the stuff that I’m talking about.
As a parent, as a wife of a teacher– how do we know what each day will bring. The question then arises of homeschool, private school, etc. Though these options may be feasible for some families but not others. When will all of this stop? I don’t want my kids to grow up in fear of going to school. I recently watched an interview on TMZ:
And it really made me question what IS our administration doing to fix this very real problem. I legit call BS. It’s taken too long and all of these kids are suffering for it.
My kids are 8, 5 and 3. How young is too young to start talking about this kind of stuff with them? Do they even need to know? What is age appropriate? Thankfully, Summer is right around the corner and I can rest a little bit easier…