Lock Down
 

Who else is in lock down because of the sniper?

We are and it sucks. Atleast I have my laptop to play on.

what does this mean?

are you stuck at school?

Almost.

We are very limited in our movement around school. Were in a campus style school and needless to say, we can barely move. We can't eat outside, we are stuck in one cafeteria, and to add to that, we cannot go to differnt rooms durring study hall to make up tests and such.

Teachers patrol the walkways and all blinds are closed.

We used to get those when i was in high school. Especially when they sent in the drug dogs.

Our school is like that everyday. We have been like that for the past four years.

In addition, we have one active and armed cop walking the campus at all times, and other law enforcement people that patrol all day long.

Our school is always pretty open. We have a teacher on "hall duty" stationed at each enterance during all hours ... but usually they don't even look up when you come in the building! We have an armed cop on duty at all times who just walks around the school. Somtimes, people from the police department randomly come and walk around the school. We don't have to worry about closing blinds or anything because the only windows in the school are in the commons ... there are no windows in any of the classrooms. :( Juniors and seniors have open campus for lunch, and seniors get senior privelege where they can leave for the hour they have off. It's not very strict at all.

- Katie

our school looks and is simmilar to a prison. We have 10 foot tall steel gates around our school, all of the windows have shutters on them that are normally closed. The parking lots are all gated in. The only time we are allowed out is during lunch. Not as bad as you guys right now, we have armed police on campus all day and there is dade county public schools police department and there is usually more than one cop on campus.

We had lots of freedome before this, so this is unexpected.

We we're just in a lockdown today, which took us all by surprise...because they did it last week as well, both times for the drug dogs....it has never happened this frequently before...very odd.....last week it was almost all of our D Block (hours 7/8) and we couldnt leave the class or switch classes from hour 7 to 8....today it was shorter.....Our school with the new administration is now pretty strict on passes in the halls and such, but I can roam around pretty freely If i try....

Wow things have certainly changed since my day. Our school had classrooms that opened directly to the outdoors (sunny California) and it was open campus for all grade levels for anytime you had free time, not just lunch. It was nice.

The lockdowns must be infuriating. The teenage girls I was mentoring at an activity last night were complaining that they were constantly having drills and lockdowns lately because of concern over the sniper thing. It's crazy! We're ten hours north of D.C. by car! Still I guess it's good that the administrators at the local schools are concerned enough about the studen't's safety enough to try and be prepared. However, I think they're worrying the kids more than helping them.
The girls were all wound up from being cooped up all day. It was hard to show them the skill I was sharing. I'm proud of them though. They picked up really fast and did a good job after they got thier "wiggles" out. It helps to have a facility with a basketball court where they can get thier energy out so that they don't kill each other with their over exhuberance(sp?)

I hope things improve for you Mr. JosephM.

Thanks. I'm not the only school doing this. Many others are too. So if you see a team from Richmond, VA, chances are very likely their in lock down to, so if I loose my sanity on these boards, you know why.

We've never had drug dogs come to our school ... funny, because a fair amount of that does go on :mad: Though I did see three people get arrested during school on Tuesday ...

- Katie

OOooohh! JosephM! you poor thing! (I'm not beinmg sarcastic here).
I'm at least willing to be here for you. Send an address we'll mail you some chocolate chip cookies or something. Chocolate always makes me feel better.
Being cooped up is hard on a soul. I nearly went crazy when I was stuck in bed during my pregnancies. I suggest finding some exciting novels you like and reading a lot if your laptop goes dead.

My school's pretty much like Katie's, except only seniors have open lunch. Not that it's monitored that well, though. We have 3 parking attendants/hall monitors that are supposed to watch that, but there are about 7 door you can use to leave, and only 4 are ever watched. Plus, during non-lunch times, they don't even care. I have an off hour, and can leave school then, and I haven't been stopped once.

my school is pretty lax. some teachers are [responsible & care about you alot], so you have to identify them and just ignore them (do as they say, don't bother fighting if it's wrong, cause they're right, since they're a teacher, and you're just a lowly student), and believe me, i've learnt the hard way (i hate detention so much). apart from that, seniors have open campus, but the rest of us are free to roam the halls. last year i had a lot more freedom, cause i would just say "champey" (the name of our science/research teacher and robotics mentor) and you get by anything :p. this year she can't do that though, cause teacher's got mad :(. the only thing i really hate now is that my late bus (bus you take if you stay after and can't get a ride home) goes quite literally in circles around my house, so it takes a lot longer than it should (i hate school buses). oh well, i guess i can't complain too much.

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.