Lockdown

The other night my husband and I were watching the new 2018 TV series based on the Winona Ryder/ Christian Slater film Heathers.  As we came to an episode about a school lockdown drill, we began to talk about how different things are now than they were when we were growing up, and how scary this stuff all is, particularly as parents.

Not a day later I received a notification from the school board - several schools in the area were in lockdown and hold and secure, including the one that the minions go to.  While the incident being investigated by police was at a high school nearby, many daycares, primary schools, and other establishments were shut down just in case for over half of the school day.

Image via UNO News Net

I spent the afternoon distractedly tapping away at my keyboard for work, and refreshing the TDSB social media account to figure out what was going on, whether or not everyone was safe, and when/how I'd be able to pick up my kids.  As tempting as it was to call the school, demand to know what was going on, I knew they had this, and I had to be patient.  Our kids safety is dependant on us following these instructions.

Thankfully, no one was hurt and everyone let the police do their job.  At pickup, instead of finding scared kids, they were both a little hyper, since they hadn't been permitted to go out for lunch or recess that day.  The only upset moment was when Molly realized that her brother had managed to get his hands on a coveted purchase of chocolate milk (I imagine kids in the older grades who normally leave school property for lunch were buying a ton of these to fill them up at lunch), and by the time the milk cart arrived at Molly's class they were sold out. There were a lot of tears, and we needed to purchase replacement chocolate milk. Sometimes I forget that they're only seven and important issues to them are very different than they are to us.  I wish my biggest worry was chocolate milk, but I'm happy that in what was a scary situation for us, it was not one for our young kids.

I don't love that our kids live in a world where they have to do things like lockdown drills (apparently last year their was a lockdown when an animal who was suspected of having rabies was near their school - another important use of the system), I'm relieved that the school has in place rules, systems, and communications to help keep our children safe, and us parents as calm as we can be.

This serves as a reminder for us all to review our school handbooks and find out how the school will communicate with us should there be an emergency.  Today I am thankful to our teachers, the police, and the communication team at TDSB who kept our kids safe, calm, and happy.