Last year, we got a box in the mail. Well needless to say sence it was fromt he Prince of Islamabad they thought it was a bomb. We had to walk down a 1/3 mile hill that was iced over. Well it was a video tape.

Then later that day, we went into "Lock-Down" beacuse a science teacher found some baking powder on his desk. The hazmat team came and everthing! We were on the FRONTPAGE of THE UNION LEADER (Manchester's local newspaper, its also one of 15 delivered to The White House everyday!)

Hmm. My school consists of one building. Our doors have been locked since Columbine and the blinds are normally closed, anyways. We aren't allowed to go anywhere, normally. Oh yeah...my school's on a dirt road. Hehe...stupid city slickers :P

Ha, you people have it easy. First off, no one goes outside for lunch except teachers. My school has one door that students can use to go in and out, and one emergency door that you pretty much get suspended for going near (outside of a fire drill that is). We're seven floors high and don't even have blinds on the windows! We have one cop that's here full time and a prescient up the block. I guess I can't complain since we're a small school (396 kids in all), they just send us all home if there is a problem ("you'll just make up the work later")

Oh the joys of city life

I fell better now know that this isn't a problem just for us.

Are you certain it was a prince of Islamabad, seeing as that's a city and all?

My high school was very open when I attended, but it's since become something of a prison - not because of terrorism, or Columbine, or angry gunmen, but because stupid students continued to get themselves killed during lunch by driving like crazy people.

Yes I am sure, I will try to dig-up the article

Wow, I thought it was bad for us with three stories and no windows! :p

- Katie

Wow my school is nothing like any of your schools. I can go from room to room when I have a pass. I rarely get stoped when I go to music lessons if I don't have a pass. Security is pretty decent. My school is fairly large. I think it is the second largest school in Suffolk County New York.

Well I don't think times have changed that much, its probably more regionial. My high school of about 2600 students enjoyed a completely open campus. Classrooms that opened up into hallways are quite rare on our campus, most of them just open up to outside. Juniors and Seniors are allowed to leave campus for lunch and most do and everyone else (except maybe 100) eat outside. It's probably weird for anybody outside cali to come to our quad and see people eat lunch on benches, planters, or just on the ground. There's always people walking around outside without passes whether it be that they have an open period or they're going to the bathroom or pretending to go to the bathroom to take a breather from pre-calc (not that I would know this personally), etc. Its pretty to get on and off our campus if need be since its so big, open, and spreadout. Fortunately we live in the suburbia that's like the #9 safest city or something. Quite a difference in life here compared to most of you guys, wow!

For us it's normally ok. Fence around most of the school. One side is a brick wall shared with the highway, but the other ones are all easily climbable. There isn't really any security measure in place, except a crossing guard at the front entrance where all the cars come in and out (which makes for an INSANE traffic jam every morning, being near a highway and all.)

only thing is our school's "Code Central" and "Code Blue" procedures.

"Code Blue" is for emergencies. we went into it a few years ago when some armed person robbed a bank down the street. Basically, you're all confined to the buildings, and all the outside doors are locked. That's all fine and dandy, cause most of the classrooms are inside one building or another, all with running water, bathrooms, etc... unless you're in the portables, in which case you're screwed if you hafta pee, but at least you've got air conditioning. :D

"Code Central" is something really dumb. In the event of a biological or nuclear attack, we all congregate (all 6 grades or so) in the gym/main office complex, which is then sealed airtight. Somehow, they calculated that there would be enough oxygen in there for all 1000 of us to breathe for a day or so, after which we have to either sit there and suffocate, or open the doors and breathe anthrax, radioactive iodine, or whatever else they were trying to protect us from.

Go fig. :D

our shooting experience
 

We generally don't have a problem with shootings.

However last year my 17yo daughter called me on her cell phone, "We're in lockdown and don't know why." I called police, kept getting answering machine or shuffled to Lt's answering machine. Called school, no answer. Finally called newspaper who hadn't been really paying attention to the police scanner. Boy, they can move fast.

I called my daughter back to give updates when I had them. Someone had been shot. Cell phones aren't allowed at their school, but the teacher too was grateful for my daughter's updates.

A while later a student was called out of my daughter's classroom. My daughter thought it was cuz the school thought he might have some answers.

It was cuz he was the shooter - who'd been listening to my daughter giving all the updates.

Turned out he'd brought a gun to school, left it in his backpack, it fell off a bench, shot his best friend, who didn't know he'd been shot, but his shoulder hurt, so he went to the nurse, then the shooter dumped the gun when alerted to going to lockdown.
:mad:

Later that year my daughter had a day at the newspaper for an english assignment. The crime reporter discovered and exclaimed, "That was your mom that called us?!?" Then he and other reporters were verrrry amenable to helping her with another issue - publicity about our robotics' team.