Students Traumatized by School Active Shooter Drills | New Amsterdam | MD TV

We had an active shooter drill like this when I was a kid in elementary school, during the 99-00 school year. I was 7. They “forgot” to tell the teachers. I watched my teacher lock and block a door and prepare to die for a bunch of 7 year olds who barely tied their shoes correctly, that she huddled in the corner and told that if we played the quiet game we would all get candy. When they revealed the drill, I watched my teacher‘s knees nearly buckle, the weight of twenty little lives somehow heavier for it. She went to her desk and put her head down. She took a week of leave. I don’t blame her.

My school did a drill and told no one. I just remembered feeling mad at a girl who wouldn't be quiet as she was crying so loud. But she was 12 and scared.

So, let me get this straight. The School can afford a drill with guns firing blanks, but can't afford counsellors? Putting aside the fact that shootings are horrible things, I would think Counsellors would be necessary.

This feels less like a drill and more like psychological torture.

Wow that’s negligent. The school should be sued. No one told the teachers, other students, parents. OMG that’s crazy

There was a journal I read a year ago about the effects of realistic active shooter drills. The conclusion was that making the drill too realistic made it difficult for students to learn from the drill due to their fear response taking over. It also showed that realistic drills resulted in PTSD in the kids, instead of confidence in what to do if the real thing happened.

I'll never forget: 7th grade, the principal spoke over the speaker system that we were on lockdown, no one knew it was happening and the biggest concern was his voice. He sounded like he was going to cry. Our teacher locked the door, we all crowded to one corner of the room. She turned the lights off and then she stood by the door. She told us that if anyone came through that door she would fight for us. All of us thought it was just another drill, so we quietly whispered among eachother and played on out phones. Until we heard loud bangs echo from down the hall, and it went absolutely silent. Some of us began to cry, most of us began to text our families. We were on the second floor, the catwalk was visible through the long window that spanned one wall of the classroom. Everyone panicked even more when we saw a swat team maneuvering across the catwalk. Someone banged on our door loudly at least five times, one of the girls I knew screamed, her friend tried to quiet her. Our teacher with a wavering voice, said she was going to start putting us in the supply closet. The supply closet was small, we knew not all of us could fit in there. "Let me in!" The guy on the otherside of the door said. Everyone went as quiet as they possibly could, nothing else happened. Twenty minutes later the principal called over the loud speaker that it was a drill and that the local sheriff's department was practicing a mock school shooter safety exam. Half of us went home early because our parents thought it was legit and they rushed to the school to come get us. Our teachers had no choice but to stay, but I know my science teacher was shaken for weeks. The administration got in trouble for what they did, but all of us were messed up after it.

Our school did this with fake blood and more. I was 16. I had a mental breakdown. They didn’t tell us. And I thought I would watch everyone I cared about in that class die. I started preparing myself to die for my friends. Fight or die. I still have to go to therapy at 24. I still have nightmares about watching my friends die. I still to this day make sure I know all exits in a building. Make sure I know who would need help first. The school said it made me “prepared” my therapist said it made me a paranoid child who felt death was always on the table when I went to school.

Luckily, the SWAT team came in time for us. No one was physically shot to death… but we were still held hostage at gun point for almost two hours, begging with our classmate to let the younger students go, while he was forcing our teacher to read his manifesto out loud… still affects me almost 15 years later. I sympathize with anyone being put through this as ‘preparation’. No one deserves to experience an active school shooter - no one. **Thanks for listening 🙏 I was shocked to see the likes today. Stay safe everyone~

I remember my english teacher telling us that our school was going to try to do a drill like this but first they did it during the summer with the teachers and had some other people of different departments help to just to see how the teachers would react (they knew what was going on dw) and she told me once it was over basically everyone was just like "We cannot do this to kids even if its just a drill"

I feel bad for that girl. I was a substitute teacher at a high school when Parkland happened, and since then, I have had nightmares about there being a school shooting and not being able to help the kids.

Back when I was in High School, my school did a "drill" about drunk driving, and looking back, it was absolutely HORRIBLE!! They made an announcement that morning that one of our classmates had been killed the night before in a drunk driving accident. People were crying and grieving because none of us knew that it was fake. They then had her "spirit" (her dressed up to look mangled and bloody) show up randomly in the halls throughout the day!! They didn't tell everyone that it was staged until the end of the day..

Two weeks ago, there was a former student who shot a professor at our university. I cannot stop thinking what the students would have felt if they were this young, and very impressionable. A tear rolled around my eye, as I watched this. He rightly said "Trauma does not happen because you are in danger because you think you are !"

What annoys me most IRL is that we are forced to work through traumatic events so frequently we get numb too it. I have had to adapt as someone who has PTSD by lowering my defense instincts so I can remain productive. Around 2 weeks ago maybe, my University had a bomb threat and they only evacuated 2 buildings so we had to just keep working in the buildings within a 50 ft radius. Most students either went home without an excused absence or used humor to cope. I just do not know if we will be able to react appropriately if someone ever follows through with their threats bc we have to brush it off otherwise we would be traumatized by every threat and drill which are quite frequent.

It kills me at the end of the clip when he apologizes to her for the way adults are failing children. I've made similar comments when shootings have occurred. Absolutely true that this is an adult problem and we're all forcing kids to bear the burden of our failures to address it. "Thoughts and prayers" are meaningless and I'm glad kids call adults out on using it as a response. They really are the hope for the future. Kids deserve to feel safe at school, and adults are absolutely failing them.

There’s a difference between preparing students and teachers, and scaring them, terrifying them and disrupting their lives over nothing. School shootings are traumatizing, and it’s heartbreaking to know we have to be so prepared to endure one, but through practice kids will be prepared without feeling terrified in their everyday lives, and should the need for that practice ever come they will feel safer in knowing how to apply what they’ve practiced.

A friend of mine had his 6 year old son come home crying and saying he could no longer wear his favorite shoes to school. They were bright orange tennis shoes and the boy loved them, but after one of these drills, he said he was afraid the brightly-colored shoes would make him too visible a target for a shooter. He threw them under his bed and never wore them again.

I lived in a really small town with hardly any problems, it was when I was in middle school that it happened. I remember going to class like normal and everything being fine, the next the intercom comes one and the receptionist is fighting back tears as she tells us it's not a drill. I also remember huddling to one side of the classroom with everyone else as a few boys and teacher stack desks to protect the most of us as possible. The lights switching off, the first firework sound going off, the loud banging on the door as the teacher and few boys find weapons to defend themselves and possibly protect us. The trying to mental prepare myself for the worse and the 4 long hours that felt like entirely too long. More firework sounds.... all to finally the window in the back of the classroom being carefully smashed opened and us being rushed to safety with our hands in the air. The shooter had ended up getting into our classroom not much longer after the teacher got out and ran towards the officers. Our classroom became a crime scene and was closed off for the rest of the year.... it still haunts me how close to death I and everyone in my class were to death.

Had an active shooter at work a few years ago, and it was so terrifying. I was 26, I couldn't imagine going through a simulation of it (or a real one) as a kid.

I experienced my daughter's first "code red" drill with her when she was in kindergarten because I was volunteering in her classroom. There was no one acting out anything. The teacher had all the kids get in a place in the classroom where they were completely hidden (I later learned every classroom is set up so there is a "hidden" area). The teacher explained that it was a DRILL similar to a fire drill, no actual reason to be scared. She then had to tell 5 and 6 year olds why they were having this drill. Even knowing it was not real many kids started crying. After the drill was over my daughter's teacher whispered to me that if there were ever an actual school shooting the first one in the classroom to die would be her because she would do anything to protect her kids