The radio model of this story was edited by Adam Bearne.
Transcript:
LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: Because the begin of the college 12 months on this nation, there have already been over 70 shootings on campuses – 70 in simply over two months. That’s in response to the Okay-12 College Capturing Database, which tracks these incidents. So right here at MORNING EDITION, we’ve been pondering lots about each the trauma of that violence in a spot that’s imagined to be secure – a college – but additionally about the best way we now put together our children for the day it would occur to them. That features mother and father on our present, like our editor Adam Bearne. His daughter got here dwelling from her first week of kindergarten and informed him about one thing she referred to as a building drill.
CLARA: I don’t know why it’s referred to as a building drill, ’trigger that’s actually complicated.
FADEL: Clara was truly speaking a couple of lockdown drill.
CLARA: We needed to be actually quiet, go underneath our cubbies, shut the doorways, after which I received scared ’trigger I believed it was actual.
FADEL: It wasn’t, however her concern was. So we determined to take you, our listeners, into a college that, like many faculties, is attempting to arrange the youngsters with out making them really feel like a violent incident is inevitable.
Hello.
AMY KUJAWSKI: Howdy.
FADEL: I’m Leila.
KUJAWSKI: Hello, Leila. It’s good to satisfy you.
FADEL: So good to satisfy you.
KUJAWSKI: I’m Amy.
FADEL: That’s Amy Kujawski, the principal of St. Anthony Center College, which she simply calls Sam’s. It’s in a suburb of Minneapolis. And as you possibly can hear, she has that larger-than-life center college principal vitality, and she or he leads with that positivity, even when issues may really feel bleak.
KUJAWSKI: We are going to emphasize the belonging, the security, the love and care and heat.
FADEL: On today, her college goes by way of the primary of 5 state-mandated lockdown drills, the primary for the reason that mass capturing on the Annunciation Catholic College and Church close by.
How far is Annunciation from right here?
KUJAWSKI: Oh, my goodness. It’s shut. Yeah. I had employees who had nieces and nephews there, who had mates there. Yeah. Yeah.
FADEL: The partitions of Kujawski’s workplace characteristic posters with messages you may anticipate, like, hate is loud; love is powerful. However there’s additionally a laminated signal with the college’s security protocols, like there may be in each room within the constructing.
KUJAWSKI: Lockdown. Locks, lights, out of sight.
FADEL: All the youngsters know this language and what to do in a medical emergency, or one thing a lot worse. Inside Kathleen West’s classroom, the trainer will get her 12- and 13-year-old college students prepared for the lockdown drill.
KATHLEEN WEST: We need to steer clear of that window over by my desk. So when you can see that window, you’re not in a great spot, and you need to come nearer this manner. Yeah, I believe you’re good, Henry, ’trigger you possibly can’t see the window from there. So I believe that can be good. Yeah. We simply must form of sit on this unpleasantness for somewhat bit.
FADEL: When it’s time for the drill, there’s an announcement over the loudspeakers.
UNIDENTIFIED STAFF MEMBER: Can I’ve your consideration, please? It is a lockdown drill. Academics, please safe your college students in your lecture rooms. It is a lockdown drill. Thanks.
FADEL: The lecture rooms go darkish. The hallways are quiet.
And also you’re checking every door to ensure it’s locked?
KUJAWSKI: Yep. And I additionally give suggestions to our academics if I can see or hear them.
FADEL: That’s Principal Kujawski once more. She doesn’t jiggle the door handles an excessive amount of, so the scholars don’t assume there’s an actual intruder. And again in West’s classroom, she quietly reassures the scholars.
WEST: That’s them checking to guarantee that our door is locked.
FADEL: After clearing her flooring, Kujawski listens for the opposite employees checking the remainder of the college. Then she speaks into her walkie-talkie.
(SOUNDBITE OF WALKIE-TALKIE BEEPING)
KUJAWSKI: Are all of us clear? I believe we are able to name it.
UNIDENTIFIED STAFF MEMBER: Your consideration, please. The lockdown drill is all clear. The lockdown drill is all clear.
(CROSSTALK)
FADEL: The college will get loud once more as everybody strikes on to their subsequent class, and we chat with a pair college students.
PHOEBE STRODEL: I’m Phoebe Strodel, and I’m 12 years outdated.
RAEGAN DUNKLEY: Howdy. My title is Raegan Dunkley (ph), and I’m additionally 12 years outdated.
FADEL: OK. So describe to me what you simply did on this lockdown drill.
PHOEBE: Nicely, we go, like, up in opposition to, like, a wall or a bookshelf or an area the place if there have been individuals, like, coming in, they received’t have the ability to see you thru the home windows or any, like, areas, and stuff.
FADEL: However does it make you’re feeling simply typically ready?
RAEGAN: Sure.
FADEL: It does?
RAEGAN: Yeah.
FADEL: Does it scare you in any respect? Or does it make you’re feeling…
RAEGAN: No, as a result of – nicely, I imply, it positively is frightening if it’s a real-life state of affairs. However fortunately, there’s, like, a police station proper subsequent to our faculty. So if there have been to be a lockdown drill, the police can be right here inside, like, minutes.
FADEL: So the drills really feel regular to you. They’re simply a part of life. Fireplace drill…
PHOEBE: Yeah.
FADEL: …Lockdown drill.
PHOEBE: Yeah. You begin it in, like, first grade or one thing as a result of, like, the kindergarteners in all probability wouldn’t, like, deal with it or anybody youthful than that.
FADEL: Lockdown drills aren’t all the college is doing to guard its college students. The lecture rooms are locked throughout classes. There’s bullet-resistant movie on the home windows, and the police and fireplace division close by know the college’s safety protocols. West, the trainer you heard instructing her youngsters earlier? Nicely, she’s bothered that that is all so abnormal.
WEST: You’re getting me at a very susceptible time ’trigger my brother and sister each ship all of their youngsters to Annunciation.
FADEL: They do?
WEST: In order that they had been all within the capturing there. And my brother was there, and my brother-in-law had been there – simply occurred to be at Mass that day. So six of my relations had been in a mass capturing occasion this college 12 months. After which the following week, I got here again to work right here.
FADEL: What was it love to do a lockdown drill after that, realizing…
WEST: Actually, it’s so regular. You recognize, the drills are like how we’re legally mandated to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Like, that’s simply one thing that occurs.
FADEL: West was a pupil trainer when Columbine occurred over 25 years in the past, so she’s at all times taught within the period of mass shootings at American faculties.
WEST: We’ve been by way of completely different waves of, like, the best way to reply and what the drills are going to be. And naturally, now I simply at all times assume, like, nicely, the shooters have all been by way of all these drills.
FADEL: Oh.
WEST: So, like, I simply don’t even know, you already know, how efficient they’re going to be. They’re not going to shoot us after we’re in our lecture rooms, locked down. They’re going to shoot us after we’re out on the fireplace drill. The youngsters are all in the identical place, and the academics are all in the identical place. And I’m at all times pondering, like, OK, how can I save essentially the most lives on this state of affairs, proper? And it’s loopy that that’s simply a part of the job. Like, that’s not why I received into instructing within the first place.
FADEL: Yeah. What do you educate?
WEST: English.
(LAUGHTER)
WEST: I like studying and writing. I don’t actually need to educate about, like, the best way to escape, you already know, energetic shooters at college.
FADEL: Have you ever seen a change in the best way you consider getting ready the youngsters or how…
WEST: Yeah. The drills have modified over time. And I did work at one college the place they wouldn’t inform us if it was actual or not, which I believed was actually merciless and strange. So the lockdown drill would occur, and the youngsters can be like, is it actual? And I’m like, I don’t know. Hear for the sirens.
FADEL: (Gasping).
WEST: Like, if we hear the sirens, it’s actual. If we don’t, then it’s not.
FADEL: Is there something that you’d need to say or speak about in terms of getting ready these youngsters or the truth that you do have to arrange them?
WEST: Nicely, I actually want that the proper individuals would take motion to make this cease. And I don’t assume it’s honest. As a schoolteacher who began out making $30,000 a 12 months, you already know, and can by no means make greater than $100,000 a 12 months, like, my job shouldn’t be to save lots of your baby’s life. I do know the statistics don’t bear this out, but it surely simply looks like when, not if. Like, if I’m fortunate, no matter occasion occurs in my 40-year profession – I’m at 12 months 24. So if I make it to 40 or no matter, I’m fortunate if the capturing occurs on the different finish of the constructing and never the place I’m.
(SOUNDBITE OF PHILIP GLASS AND PAUL LEONARD-MORGAN’S “TALES FROM THE LOOP”)
