Geometry and AP Statistics teacher Mrs. Heughan was teaching during second period when the announcement first went off. She was on the second floor and quickly ushered her students under and around her desk.

“Nobody knew if this was a lockdown drill or an actual lockdown when the announcement went off,” Heughan said.

Sophomore Carlo Elias shared that there is a lack of drills for hostile situations, and many students do not take the drills seriously. He believes that teachers should be more prepared and that the school should emphasize the importance of practicing drills.

“I don’t feel like teachers are prepared for these drills, it’s a topic that isn’t talked about enough,” Elias said. “I feel like 60% of the school including teachers had never experienced anything like that. We all just stuck to our survival senses and hoped for the best.”

Heughan believes that the policies would be effective if everyone followed the handbook and lockdown procedures.

“We need to keep an emphasis on practicing these drills and having team meetings addressing what the procedures should be to make sure all teachers are aware of what to do and are able to communicate that to their students,” Heughan said.

However, she also thinks that there should be more safety monitors at the doors to prevent students from opening them for others.

“The sheer size of our school and the amount of people in it means that there should be more safety monitors monitoring the doors because you can say Stop the prop but kids still open the door for other students,” Heughan said.

When asked about the training they received, teachers shared that they go through training for both fire drills and lockdowns. However, some teachers do not know what to do during lockdowns and need one-on-one meetings to

ensure they are confident in the procedures.

“We go through training and we have procedures for both fire drills and lockdowns,” Heughan said. “Fire drills happen more often. I feel as though we should have more lockdown drills or have more teacher meetings to make sure teachers are confident in lockdown procedures. Teachers who don’t know what to do need to have a serious one-on-one.”

Carlo Elias agrees that we should be going over safety plans more often.

“Not only should we be practicing lockdowns, but we should practice what to do if someone is bleeding, where the alternative exits are, etc,” Elias said.

The teachers suggested that the school should have classes at the beginning of the year to discuss what a drill should look like and emphasize the importance of practicing drills.

“We should have classes at the beginning of the year, maybe the beginning of every semester and we should talk to students through what a drill should look like,” Heughan said.

This would allow students to feel safe and confident if an emergency situation were to take place.

When asked about the role of teachers in ensuring the safety of their students, they shared that they would do what they can for their students in their class or around them.

“It’s the teacher’s job to do what you can for the students in my class or around me,” Heughan said. “I’m very grateful for how our school handles communication during these events. They’re pretty quick about communicating emergency situations. We hear about the current updates through announcements, Remind and emails. We have communication throughout the lockdown as well.”