The frequency of school shootings demands that students be taught to try to save themselves and their classmates should the worst happen.
The trouble is that some hyper-realistic drills have reached the point where students are traumatized.
Preparing students doesn't require a person in a mask aiming a pellet gun at teachers and students or firing a simulated weapon. In some cases, students get no warning that what's happening in the classroom and hallways is a drill. Especially for younger children it isn't clear that a drill is not real, according to Dr. Laurel Williams, chief of psychiatry at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston.
While most states and many school districts require active shooter or lockdown drills, little guidance is often provided on the method and structure of the drills, leading to a wide range of practices.
Concerns about the drills have grown so much that a gun control advocacy group and the nation's largest teachers union have prepared a white paper providing guidelines for school safety drills that could form discussion points for creation of a best practices framework.
Among the recommendations of the white paper produced by Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association:
• Parents should get advance notice of the drills.
• It should be made clear to students that the drill is not an actual attack.
• Drills and other exercises should be age-appropriate and developed with the assistance of mental health professionals.
All of these are good, common-sense suggestions.
Editorial on 02/22/2020