A Special Thank You Freebie

Happy Saturday! I hope everyone had a great week!

We have one more school week to go before Spring Break!

This past week started with spring fever and X's on the calendar counting the days to the much-needed break. However, it ended very differently. This week is hopefully the most memorable week I will ever experience in my teaching career.

On Thursday morning, I was meeting with my reading intervention group. The block runs from 8:30-9:15 with our first graders moving from their homerooms to meet with their "Power Hour" teachers. I have 15 students, including students with IEP goals/objectives, 504s, and other students who are currently performing below-grade level.

At 8:55 am, as we had just rotated small Guided Reading groups, we heard the signal for a lockdown. We practice our drill often and immediately moved to our positions: huddled under a table in the corner, silent, and lights off. It was a bit different than our drills because the students were not with their homeroom teacher, but they still knew exactly what to do.

My thoughts...ugh, the 2nd group is going to miss their reading! However, after being in lockdown for over 15 minutes, I began to realize this was a bit different. Then 15 minutes passed, then another 15. Then I heard sirens. Then helicopters. More sirens.

There was no communication from the administration, so I checked my phone to see what I could find out. That was such a TERRIBLE idea! Facebook was full of posts relaying all sorts of conflicting information...there was an intruder, a gunman, a student held hostage. Luckily, none of this ended up being true.

I began googling and seeing breaking news headlines about our school. I was able to see media clips of the news showing police activity and growing crowds of parents. I was reading all of this while huddled in the dark with 15 first graders! What would you do? I continued to compliment how well they were doing and taking this practice so seriously. A couple students were scared and crying, but most of them were just getting a little antsy and a bit chatty. 

The entire lockdown lasted 4.5 hours.

 We had 2 accidents (can't believe only 2!) and a few temper tantrums. But for the most part, I was incredibly impressed. The only times I truly felt worried was when you could hear noises in the hall (slamming doors) and then at the 2 hour mark, a police officer unlocked my door and yelled "everyone okay?" and then locked us back in with no explanation.

The police decided to evacuate the 1200 students (we are a combined elementary/middle school) room by room using the SWAT team. It felt like forever, but eventually we heard our door being unlocked. In stepped the most humongous man we'd ever seen wearing head-to-toe SWAT gear! He had 3 rifles! My students and I were speechless. He gave us directions to line up and led us out of the room. We passed dozens of SWAT team members while we were escorted to a bus. Then we were led by police escort to a nearby school. We spent the next five hours at the school trying to dismiss 1200 students literally one-by-one. Police had to clear each child and make sure they were reunited with the right person. You can just imagine how the parents felt. It had been over 9 hours since they were reading all the awful news reports and social media (misleading) information. The police had difficulty handling the rowdy crowds!

The whole situation ended up being a complete misunderstanding and there was not a gunman or any danger.  I can't provide any more details, but I'm sure google can :)

Every child was home safe and sound by 6:00 pm. We had school the following day (about half of the students showed up) and the mayor and police commissioner were on hand to celebrate our students and all the courage they showed throughout the process.

Here's what I learned throughout this ordeal:

* My school was completely ready for the emergency - I had my room locked down in under 15 seconds and knew exactly what to do. I'm so grateful for all the practices we've had!

* My students are total rockstars! I was so proud of them!

* I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with the responsibility we have over these little lives. I teach in a generally unsafe area and always knew that there's a chance that I will be put in a position to protect my students. However, it really hit me on Thursday how true that is! These parents trust their children to us and I had no way of communicating to them that their child was safe. 

It just didn't feel right.

Friday was more about celebrating than academics. We scrapped many of our lesson plan activities because attendance was so low. We had our first graders write thank you letters to the SWAT team, mayor, and members of the community who helped out (there were so many good souls who pitched in!).  

I created this to support the writing activity:

Included: 2 letter writing formats (portrait and landscape), plus a quarter-page word bank. I hope you never have to use this!

Enjoy your weekend!