Thursday, June 12, 2008

A scary reality

Today there was an incident at Jefferson. Our school was put on 'Code Blue' lockdown because of an attempted robbery involving gunfire, directly across the street. Because of the heat all of our windows have been open, and many students and teachers heard the shots, and saw the commotion. My classroom looks directly onto the yard/alley. Fortunately, I was not teaching during the incident, but all day long we could see the taped-off house, police officers, and news crews stationed outside the premises. Sometimes I laugh and joke about the reputation our school has, but today was scary. For the first time I felt unsafe. We have practiced lockdown procedures before. Everyone followed directions. It took about 20 seconds to lockdown the school. But, open gunfire 25 yards from my open classroom window can never be considered safe.

2 comments:

Hali Tomczak said...

Kelly,

I am so sorry you had to witness that! I can't even begin to imagine what it was like for you, or the students. It is a scary fact that the majority of the city schools are at risk for such events. We can practice all we want, but when an actual event happens, we still can never be fully prepared. I'm glad you and your school were safe though, and no;open gun shots anywhere can not be considered safe.

Genna said...

I agree with Hali, that is a very scary incident! I think the whole idea of practicing for lockdowns is important. While I was at my student teaching placemtn there was a lock down while I was alone in the classroom and didn't know what was going on, thankfully I did't have students in the classroom!