Mass shootings

[BmorePat87]

(02-15-2018, 03:23 PM)Benton Wrote: 1- Stagger start times. Industrial areas cooperate and do it so they don't dump 5,000 motorists into a half mile radius at the same time. Also, not all schools are 1,500-3,000. At Marshall, there's only around 1,400 students; Heath was less than 600.

Yea, we're about 1450. At Heath it would be viable. At our school it wouldn't. It could be a solution some places and not others, but for the costs alone of staggering bus services and start times at a single school could be in the millions. We're currently discussing start time changes here and it has major financial implications.

Quote:2- Ok. Here, the drills are just running. Run for an exit or a safe room. 

And this responses wasn't meant to be a "that's not true" but more of a "this is how we do it". That's terrible that they don't do these simple drills. 

Quote:4- Lockdowns and safe rooms in the case of Marshall put the shooter locked in a room with kids and a teacher. Personally, lockdowns have got to be the dumbest decision in a school shooter. You're putting clusters of unarmed kids together in hopes nothing bad happens.

This works in a Columbine situation where the shooters are roaming the halls. It doesn't necessarily work in other situations where the shooter starts in a classroom, but these are all reactionary responses. When the shooting occurs, if you can lock yourself in a room, you're far safer than trying to leave the school. 

Quote:7- Another idea that's good on paper, but not really effective. In the Marshall shooting, the high school unlocks all doors at 7:45 to allow for the influx of students. Only two doors in or out (opposite ends of a very long building). Luckily, Gabe started shooting after 7:50. If the doors had still been locked, you'd have had 700+ kids trapped in a giant room with the shooter.

It works at our school for how it is built. Definitely not a one size fits all solution, but it helps for scenarios where an outside shooter tries to come into a building.

Quote:Many (most?) schools across the country were built long before school shootings became common. They're not designed to be defensible structures. And the current approaches largely don't do much other than get kids shot.

This is why my response was a "this is what we do" response. Every system is different and even within districts, every building is different. In our county, each school has a safety coordinator who develops these plans based on the specifics of the building.

We're also the 3rd wealthiest county in the country, so we can afford a lot of resources, so our experiences are not the same as others.