The 2012-2013 school year has been a difficult one for so many parents, not the least of whom are the parents in Newtown, CT, who lost their children in a senseless act of violence. If that event didn't shake you to the core, I don't know what would. It was extremely difficult letting Legoman and Noodle go back to school that following Monday after I had dwelled all weekend on the fear and horror that event brought to the victims, the survivors, the first responders, and all who were involved in any way. But we struggled on, one day at a time, because my husband and I knew that in the rare event that a gunman targeted our sons' school, every adult working there would throw themselves in harm's way before allowing a child to be hurt, and if they couldn't prevent tragedy themselves, it was impossible to prevent. The rest was in God's hands. It was not an entirely comfortable mental place to be, but we soldiered on and gradually began to feel like the ground under our feet was stable again.
We were blessed that no actual violence occurred in our elementary school over six months, but we did have a scary incident on the very last day of the school year: a lockdown precipitated by a 911 call reporting a shooting at one of the other elementary schools in the district. Thankfully, I had no idea this event was occurring until I received the automated call from our superintendent, reporting that there had been such a 911 call but that the police had identified the incident as nothing more than a prank phone call.
Unfortunately the majority of the teachers, staff, and students at the six schools in our district, all of which had immediately gone on lockdown after the 911 call, didn't know there was no real danger. They spent varied amounts of time (2.5hrs at our elementary school, one of the last to be searched and have the all-clear declared) hiding in classrooms or bathrooms, wondering what was going on outside their doors and scared that something sinister would burst through those doors and harm them.
Legoman, his teacher, and his entire second-grade class stayed in their classroom's one-person bathroom for over an hour, and no one could actually use the bathroom while they were all in there, of course. Noodle's class sat huddled in front of their cubbies, being perfectly quiet, which seems impossible for two dozen kindergartners, but I trust his teacher made it happen and probably even kept a smile on her face to keep them from being worried.
After I received the report that a lockdown was in progress, I hurried home from work nearly an hour's drive away so I could be local in the event the schools closed and the boys needed to be picked up. The initial automated message had declared sternly that all parents would need to show proper ID to pick up their child(ren), and I didn't want to risk our boys being stuck at school because our more local friends would be turned away when trying to take them home for us.
As the lockdown was lifted at some of the schools that had been searched first by police, a new message reported that the schools were, in fact, not closing but were finishing the day. However, parents were certainly welcome to pick up their children and take them home. With that ID, of course.
At this point I was already at home, five minutes from our school, which was still on lockdown but had gotten the word that no one was in any actual danger. What a relief that news must've been to them all, even as they had to wait out the remaining time it took for heavily armed police officers to give the official word that the school was safe.
My motherly instinct was to scoop up my babies and take them home, but I paused. I tried to think it through logically:
(a) There was and never had been any actual danger to my children.
(b) If I rushed into the school to pick them up midday, with them knowing how far I work from home, how would that color their view of the event?
(c) If I took them home early on their last day of school, would they think they had something to fear there that would make going back in September traumatic?
This wasn't a decision I was going to make by myself. I called my husband and talked it through with him, and we decided I would not go immediately to the school. Instead, I emailed both boys' classroom teachers and asked how they were doing emotionally. Noodle's teacher wrote back within minutes, reporting that he was all smiles as usual. No ill effects from the lockdown. Legoman's teacher wrote back about a half-hour later, during which I stalked my email like crazy, that he was a bit worried that another lockdown would happen but that she had reassured him everything was fine. She felt he could make it through the remainder of the day.
And so, I didn't pick up our boys that chaotic day. I let them finish their last day of the school year with the reduced number of classmates remaining in their classrooms, and I let them take the bus home, a rare treat for kids who usually go to day care after school. They came off the bus with smiles on their faces, excited to start summer break.
Yes, we talked about the lockdown that evening and in the days that followed, but we didn't dwell on the fear. We focused on how everyone did just what they were taught to do to keep them safe and why they practice for these sorts of incidents. I figure the lockdown discussion may come up as the new school year approaches, but I feel like we made the right decision for our boys in letting them finish out the day in as normal a fashion as possible. Other kids needed to go home, or their parents needed the reassurance of having them home, and I understand that. Our family made a different choice, and I hope we never are in the position to make such a choice again.
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