As I pulled into the parking lot, I heard the principal's assistant over the loud speaker.
"The lock down is over. All is well. Please return to your regular activities. And yes, we know that there will be more students in the cafeteria than usual."
They buzzed the door for me, and I went into the lobby. It was deserted. Only Miss Mercy, the official greeter behind the front desk, was there to wonder along with me what exactly had happened. An hour later, it turned out to be a note in the middle school bathroom claiming a bomb was in the building.
We shook our heads, ruefully. "Someone had a test he didn't want to take," was our best case scenario. The police had checked the building, but thought it prudent to lock down the adjacent elementary school as well. Better safe than sorry, we all agreed, feeling the strain of living in today's world pressing on our hearts.
And then I went out to the playground, where the kindergarten was being released from the cafeteria. They'd been in a hard lock down; lights off, silent, all the adults on alert. Now they were supposed to play.
It was a short recess, and no one was on the time out bench. The kids were very glad to see me, and they hugged me, and then the whistle blew and we went inside to hear a story..... after Ms B talked to them abut being safe and checking to be sure they were safe and how they were certainly safe and the adults wanted them to know that they were safe.
And it didn't end there. As I signed out in the Volunteer Log Book, Miss Mercy was on the phone. when she hung up, it rang again. And then, again. I wondered with my eyes and she shrugged. "It will be like this all day." Parents were calling in response to the Principal's email about the lock down. It was a scare.... we exercise caution in these situations.... everything's been searched..... everyone is safe.
Over and over, with warmth and sincerity, she reassured families that their little ones were safe.
This is a woman who sits in front of a glass window and a glass door, protected by a buzzer. I didn't have the heart to ask if she felt safe. At some point, getting out of bed and going to work is sometimes just a leap of faith, as little bits of sanity and security are chipped away.
Never in my lifetime have I known a time of safety. And when I think back to when polio was the scourge, when plagues came along, when warring armies might suddenly rage through a town, maybe it's never been. It's just different things to be unsafe about.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember being scarred by Duck and Cover drills. I remember feeling bemused (my desk would stop the broken glass from hurting me? I didn't think so.) and bored (it was dark and quiet and dull while we waited... for what???). It was a break from the routine, and that in itself was okay.
DeleteYet I don't remember bomb threats or nuclear warnings on tv every third day,the way we have school shooters now.
I try to reassure myself that it's always been something (as you say, back through history... even to the polio vaccine which my mother always said saved her sanity during our childhoods). But seeing Miss Mercy calmly reassuring parents (imagining Little Cuter making the same phone call to FlapJilly's school) while sitting so vulnerable and exposed just tweaked my Run and Hide button.
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My daughter began a new job at the beginning of August. She is now an administrator for a private school in the Tenderloin in San Francisco. She just had a conversation with a parent about keeping kids safe. All of the kids. Sometimes doing things that a parent might not see as reasonable, but in retrospect of all the students, is reasonable. The parent was able to become calm and agree.
ReplyDeleteAdministrators who can calmly communicate are treasures! No wonder, she's your daughter <3
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It's funny that when she was approached for this job and started to consider it, her first thought was, "this is my mom's thing, working in an inner school in San Francisco, not mine." And it's true, had I been offered that job 10 years ago, I probably would have taken it.
DeleteNuclear annihilation always seemed like a distant and unlikely event. Active shooters feel a lot more real and likely to me.
ReplyDeleteYup. It was something for grownups to worry about.... until 1962 and the Cuban Missile Crisis when I knew I was going to die. Knew it.
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I am not saying this is not a bad time, but I was a child when I was walking home from school, on a gravel road, where I had to walk a mile and a half-- no houses on most of it. This time, I was alone when I saw a car coming. I began running. My grandmother condemned my father for scaring me as it was them. The thing is a few years later, I was walking in Salem when a guy in a black van (yes total stereotype) stopped and asked if I'd help him find an address for $5. I think there have been reasons for a long time to fear and to teach our children not all out there mean well by them. It's not just school shooters. I suspect kids today, with the video games and movies that many see, are tougher than we were.
ReplyDeleteFlapJilly just told her mother "I'm strong, Mama." I love that she feels it and I love that her parents presented it to her as a valued trait. Perhaps you are right.
DeleteI hope your father told Grandma where to get off :-) A healthy respect for the dangers in the world around you has always been a good thing.
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Not a chance he'd have told her off. Grandma Trueax as a matriarch of the old school ;)
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