On May 24, 2022, when Angeli Rose Gomez heard that there was an active shooter at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where her two young sons attended, she and other frantic parents rushed to the school. As time went by, the parents started shouting in frustration because the police still weren’t acting, even when the sounds of gunfire and children screaming could be heard coming from inside the school. That’s when Angeli Rose Gomez took matters into her own hands. She jumped a fence, ran into the school, found her sons in their classrooms and hurried them outside to safety, along with some of their classmates.
This mother went to extraordinary lengths to protect her children on that horrible day when a lone gunman killed 19 children and two teachers. Even now, two years later, there continues to be fallout from the Uvalde school shooting, which may forever remain a tragic example of how everything that could possibly go wrong, went wrong.
Lockdown: a parent’s worst nightmare?
Columbine High School… Sandy Hook Elementary… Robb Elementary… these are school names that strike fear in the hearts of parents. The memory of the violence that happened at these schools are the reason why many parents fear the worst if they hear that there is a lockdown emergency at their child’s school.
“Families are most concerned about mass casualty incidents, but mass casualty incidents are actually the most rare,” says Dr. Melissa Nelson, the K-12 Subject Matter Expert who served at the Southwestern Regional Threat Assessment Hub, a regional initiative that worked to help community members in southwest Pennsylvania recognize and report potential threats to prevent targeted violence.
According to Dr. Nelson, “People use the term lockdown in multiple ways to represent various response protocols to situations that involve risk of or acts of violence, or imminent concerns about safety. Because of the varied use of the term, it can create confusion about what it actually means.”
For example, if an angry parent enters the school office, or if someone sees a potentially rabid animal wandering around the schoolyard, the school might call the response protocol to one or both of those a lockdown, even though one is an internal threat and the other is an external threat. Another school district might call the response to the angry parent a lockdown while the protocol for the animal outside the building might be called a shelter in place.
Parents should educate themselves
Dr. Nelson believes that one of the most important things for parents to understand is the terminology used at their child’s school, since the terms lockdown, active shooter and shelter in place, could have different definitions from one district to another. If a parent doesn’t know or understand what terminology their child’s school uses, they should ask.
“Talk to school leaders,” she says. “Know the terminology for your district. Understand terminology around safety and security.”
If something happens at school, parents also need to know where and when they can expect to hear fact-based, credible information. Just like school leaders have plans for weather-related issues and closures, districts have protocols in place for safety and security issues. Parents should not rely on rumor, gossip or social media to get information.
“I would caution parents to consider the sources from where they are getting information about a critical incident,” Dr. Nelson advises. “Unless your child’s school has specifically stated that they will communicate through a social media site or the local news as the primary source of information, consider that what you are hearing may not be verified information.”
Although that Texas mother was willing to risk handcuffs and jail by running straight into an active shooter situation inside Robb Elementary School, experts would never advise parents to rush to the school. When parents come to the school, this only complicates the situation.
“Superintendents are trained on how to communicate in crisis,” says Dr. Nelson. “People need to be reassured that even when there is a delay in information, behind the scenes, leaders are working and want to provide factual and credible information as quickly as possible.”
How should parents report concerning behavior?
Dr. Nelson also wants parents to know who to contact if they are concerned about behavior they think might be risky or dangerous.
“There are multiple ways to report behaviors of concern. I always recommend beginning by talking to a trusted administrator, counselor, teacher or other staff member at your child’s school. Pennsylvania also has a statewide anonymous program to report behaviors of concern.”
Safe2Say is a youth violence prevention program that is run though the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General. It consists of an app and an 800 number, and allows anyone to anonymously report unsafe, or potentially harmful, dangerous, violent or criminal activities in any school in the state.
Calls are routed to a triage center, and if any tip involves a life threatening situation, both the police and the school are notified at the same time.
“Many tips are about self-harm,” Dr. Nelson says.
For the 2022-2023 school year, the Safe2Say Annual Report states that the program received 31,027 tips, excluding 1,368 tips that were designated as false reports or prank tips. Crisis center analysts were able to immediately identify almost 800 of these tips as pranks, while the rest were tips that contained seemingly credible information that was either proven untrue upon investigation or was deemed to have been provided with the intention to harm or disrupt.
The Annual Report states that “while false tips are rare, it is critical to the success of the program to keep false tips rare.”
How one local district handles school safety and security
Burrell School District, in Westmoreland County, is a small district with 1,800 students. Carla Roland, who works as the School Safety and Security Coordinator for the district, encourages parents to be familiar with their school’s protocols, all of which are available in the online Skyward system, which the district uses for automated school management and communication.
“Parents need to make sure that all communication in the Skyward system is correct, like who to contact, who not to contact, emails, cell phones, etc. All of this information is available at all times.”
If there is an emergency at any school, the district wants to get information out as quickly as possible.
“The most difficult thing for parents is to stay back and wait for information and not come to the school,” Mrs. Roland says. “It’s important because if there truly is an emergency, the school could potentially be a crime scene and it’s really important to let law enforcement do what they do best.”
If there is a lockdown, as soon as the district has information, it goes out to the families on Skyward. But since news can spread faster on social media than accurate information from official sources, I asked Mrs. Roland how quickly the district provides information on the portal?
“That depends,” she replies. “If we don’t write the narrative, we know somebody else will. But we would absolutely want to make sure everyone is safe before we communicate that. Our goal is to reduce panic. For example, if there is a bomb threat, the instant we know it’s a hoax, we relay that information. Families appreciate that.”
Every classroom in the Burrell School District has a “safety bucket.”
“It’s literally a five-gallon paint bucket,” Mrs. Roland says. “It’s not very fancy, but it’s very effective.”
Each bucket contains items, such as sanitary wipes, blankets, Jolly Rancher candies (in case any kids are diabetic), paper towels, tourniquets and whistles and other information. These are things that a class could use if they had to shelter in place for a period of time.
The “i love u guys” Foundation
The “i love u guys” Foundation is a national leader in school safety. According to the Foundation’s website, more than 50,000 school, district, departments, agencies, organization and communities around the world, including dozens in Southwestern Pennsylvania, use the “i love u guys” Foundation programs for crisis response and post-crisis reunification.
The Foundation was started by the parents of 16-year-old Emily Keyes, who died in a school shooting at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colorado in 2006. As she was being held hostage, she sent text messages to each of her parents, expressing “I love u guys” just a few hours before she was killed.
Today the Foundation, which collaborates with families, schools, communities, organizations and government entities, to provide research-based training and educational programs, is led and supported by “survivors, family members, first responders and community members with a vested interest in safety, preparedness and reunification in schools.”
“The “i love u guys” Foundation’s Standard Response Protocol is one of a number of sound options for schools to adopt,” Dr. Nelson says.
The Standard Response Protocol (SRP) is an all-hazards institutional response to any given situation. SRP demands a specific vocabulary but also allows for great flexibility. The simple premise is that during any incident, these five specific actions can be performed.
Standard Reunification Method (SRM)
Another important aspect of crisis response that The “i love u guys” Foundation highlights is to provide safe means for students to be reunited with their parents or guardians in the event of a school crisis or emergency.
According to the Foundation, “Crisis recovery starts with the crisis, not after. Without a plan to reunite students and parents, we exacerbate the stress and potential trauma of the crisis itself and we jeopardize the responsibility of the school and district in maintaining the chain of custody for every student. A predetermined practiced reunification method ensures the reunification process will not further complicate what is probably already a chaotic, anxiety-filled scene.”
Schools that utilize the Foundation’s SRM training learn how to handle, organize and reunify staff and students, no matter what type of emergency the school faces.
I’m not scared, I’m prepared
Experts also encourage families to have their own safety plans. For example, do your children know what to do if something happens in a store or restaurant?
“Like what if mom goes into the bathroom and doesn’t return?” Dr. Nelson asks.
If something unexpected happens, do your kids understand where they should go and what they should do? Does your family have a rally point?
This is why experts believe that drills are important, both at school and at home. Children experience more stress when they don’t know what to expect or what to do.
“When conducted in a developmentally appropriate and trauma-informed manner, drills promote muscle memory,” Dr. Nelson says.
Mrs. Roland says the Burrell School District “practices evacuations and lockdowns, but usually just one piece at a time. We refrain from doing a full blown emergency drill. Situational awareness is very important. It’s all about muscle memory.”
ALICE training, which stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate, is an important piece of the Burrell School District’s safety plan.
Mrs. Roland has noticed that parents’ attitudes about drills have shifted over time. When they first started doing drills, they started by just training the teachers and staff.
“But we decided to also train students because we believe that knowledge is power and we wanted to train everyone, even the children. Kids are unbelievably resourceful, intuitive and capable of a lot of things,” she says.
She recalls that at first, some elementary school parents had concerns about doing drills, so the Lower Burrell Police Department hosted an evening where parents could ask questions and get the school and law enforcement perspective. Since then, the district continues to encourage parents to reach out and ask questions if they don’t understand or have concerns about anything.
“If you’re not sure, just ask,” Mrs. Roland says.
Now when Burrell does a lockdown drill, high school students go to the elementary school kids and read to them a popular book by Julia Cook called I’m not scared, I’m prepared, which many schools use to help kids “navigate school safety threats.” After reading the book, the older kids ask the youngsters to draw a picture of how they felt safe.
“Every district protocol is about empowerment,” Mrs. Roland says. “We never want young people to look at the world in a fearful way,”
“We are taking care of your child.”
Fear can naturally arise if parents and guardians don’t know what a school is doing to protect their children.
From Dr. Nelson’s experience from working closely with school districts all over Pennsylvania, she has observed that “School leaders are so earnest. They worry about safety and keeping kids safe more than anything. School leaders are genuinely working around the clock to keep your child safe.”
And that is what school leaders want parents to know and understand: They want your child to be safe. They want families to feel secure and for parents to talk to them, ask questions, listen to experts and be proactive in promoting safety.
“Every day, parents send to us their most precious commodity, their most prized possessions, their children,” says Mrs. Roland. “Parents need to know that the teachers and administrators and staff at the schools genuinely love and care for their kids. We don’t take it lightly.”
Pittsburgh writer, Ann K. Howley, is the author of the award-winning young adult novel, The Memory of Cotton.
Images supplied by Ann K. Howley
