Duck and cover - what happens in a school lockdown

If I were a parent with kids in elementary school, I would want to know what my child experiences during a lockdown drill - sometimes called an active shooter drill.  As a school board member it was important to me to get a sense of what our students are experiencing, and two weeks ago I had occasion to "shadow" the superintendent during a drill in our local schools.  Officers from the town's police department and school administrators also participated.  Law enforcement doesn't like to reveal much about these drills, even to parents, out of the obvious concern that knowledge of such could give useful information to a bad person.  Then, a few days ago NorthJersey.com also posted this brief video: What happens during school lockdown?  It accurately describes what I witnessed, from the hallways outside of the classrooms.

NJ State Law 18A:41-1 states that every school shall have at least one fire drill and one school security drill each month - the details of the law can be found at https://www.nj.gov/education/schools/security/drill/. 

Schools are required to hold a minimum of two of each of the following security drills annually:

 Active shooter;

 Evacuation (non- fire);

 Bomb threat;

 Lockdown

Two of these eight mandated drills do not have to include students; the two non-student drills cannot be in the same category (according to the final report of the NJSBA School Security Task Force, What Makes Schools Safe?).

My question has always been, what is the difference between a lockdown drill and an active shooter drill?  Does an active shooter drill include someone running through the halls shooting blanks and making a commotion intended to portray an actual event?  A FEMA document cited in the NJSBA report recommends schools consider full-scale exercises that "simulates a real event as closely as possible," and "takes place in a highly stressful environment that simulates actual response conditions."  But what would the emotional and psychological impact of that type of drill have on the youngest children, or those who have already experienced trauma outside of school?

The drill I witnessed was not such a "full-scale exercise." And while the state identifies lockdown and active shooter drills separately, there is nothing in either the law, or in the Drill Observation Checklists that would distinguish one from the other. My understanding is that, if there were to be a more realistic active shooter drill, it would involve volunteers from the older grades, not the entire school.

What I think about most is what I was unable to see in the classroom. The image of children cowering silently in the corner of a darkened room, out of view from windows or doors is, quite honestly, heartbreaking to me. I never experienced a "duck and cover" drill as a child of the Cold War - only fire drills. Yet I knew within a few seconds if there was an actual fire - I would have seen the threat of flames and smoke. Lockdown drills are unannounced, and frightening - what do the kids in the darkened classroom know, or are even able to do about what's happening outside the door? I truly regret the necessity of these drills.

Finally, I offer this article from NJ.com, N.J. schools are putting kids through scary shooter drills -- and parents have no idea. I place it at the end of this post because, while on the whole the article is well-balanced and informative, the title is unnecessarily alarmingly. You should have an idea - please talk to your kids about what they are experiencing - and feeling - in the classroom during these drills. Our society has managed frightening times before, and the cost of our response has to be measured against the likelihood of the threat itself.