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Writer's pictureJoanne Jacobs

Let's stop terrifying children



New York state will ban "active shooter drills" with actors playing shooters and victims, reports Shayla Colon in the New York Times. New guidelines call for a“trauma-informed” and “age-appropriate” approach to drills. Schools will give advance notice to staff, students and parents.


However, all New York schools — public and private — "will still be required to conduct eight evacuation drills and four lockdown drills every year," writes Colon.


That seems like a lot. In my school days, we had only a few fire drills every year. One year, we had a tornado drill. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, when I was 10, we prepared for nuclear war by putting our heads on our desks. Lockdowns hadn't been invented.


Fires aren't set during fire drills, says Mo Canady of the National Association of School Resource Officers. He sees no reason to pretend there's a shooter in the school in order to hold a drill.


Everytown for Gun Safety says there's "almost no research affirming the value of these drills for preventing school shootings or protecting the school community when shootings do occur," and there is evidence that children are traumatized by active-shooter drills.

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6 Comments


superdestroyer
Jul 28

The children may not need the actors but the responders/security team/leadership needs to play out real scenarios sometimes. See Uvalde to see what happens when leadership is not up to the task.

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m_t_anderson
Jul 30
Replying to

The Campus Police at UT San Antonio found a creative "middle ground" approach. They scheduled a FILMED Active Shooter Exercise with student volunteers, and used the film for student and faculty training. Not sure what they're doing now, but there have been no media reports of active-shooter-training trauma.

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m_t_anderson
Jul 28

And yet we have no qualms about letting gangbangers, dope dealers, drag queens and Hamassholes running amok in schools. Nah, none of that's traumatizing, is it?

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mrmillermathteacher
mrmillermathteacher
Jul 27

I think some people, subconsciously or not, enjoy traumatizing kids.

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