Danger is exhausting

I have traffic duty, before and after school this week.  (It must be said, traffic duty in May is infinitely better than traffic duty in January.)  After school, the entire playground and front of the school is a swarm of students.  They are everywhere.  They mostly flow away from the school in about ten minutes, with a few stragglers.

At 2:30, the teachers were assembled in the library for our regular short Wednesday afternoon faculty meeting.  We were chatting and comparing notes from the day when there was a lockdown announced over the speakers.  We all looked at each other in confusion, but it all kind of dawned on us at the same time that it wasn't a drill because 1) we always know when there will be a drill and 2) it was after school anyway.  We all sprung into action.  Someone turned off the lights and people locked the doors and we all crammed between the shelves of the library.  Someone brought in two crying students.  One of them was a third grader (not one of mine) with her kindergarten brother.  The kindergartner's teacher took control of them.  She sat on the floor with her student circled in her arms while she was texting her mom.  Her mom is a sub at the school and the teacher's two children were with their grandma.  She confirmed they were safe and went back to comforting her student.

It was very dark and I don't know who it was but someone brought another student.  He was sobbing.  I asked, "Who is it?"  The adult told me and it was another third grader (not one of mine).  I gathered him in my arms.  I held him tight as he shook and cried.  He kept whispering in terror, "I want my mom!  I want my mom!"

"You're safe," I said.  "We'll protect you."  

But I didn't know.

We didn't know why there was a lockdown.  There had been a police presence at the school all week after school because of problems with adults (pretty much all the student problems are actually adults' problems).  Was there someone in the school?  The library doors were locked but they are glass and in Nashville the shooter just shot through the glass.  Like you see on a National Geographic show when the young are threatened, we surrounded those three little ones with layers of adults.  A teacher who is pregnant was nudged into the center of the group too and when I thought about it later, I realized that must just have been instinctual for us.  I know we've probably all considered how we would shield children in a shooting, I know I have, but we protected a pregnant teacher too.

Humans are pretty awesome.

Except for, you know, shooters.

An administrator got a text that it was not a threat in the building, but in the neighborhood so we breathed a little easier.

Ten long minutes later, we got the all clear.  Someone turned on the lights and we all told the children they had been so brave.  The librarian got them each a piece of chocolate. 

Kristie had been locked in her office with more children and she came to tell us what had happened. 

She had received the call from police and had sent a teacher and a secretary and a custodian who happened to be nearby to gather children and she went herself and got everyone inside that was still outside.  She is about my age and she said, "Well, I found out I can still run!"

Those heroes who ran outside to get kids were actually putting themselves in danger, but they didn't hesitate.

None of us hired on for this, but I'm so proud to be one of them.  I work with such good people.

We kind of decompressed a little and after the meeting I went into Kristie's office and we talked mother to mother/grandmother to grandmother about what we could do to be more prepared next time.  I don't know why I inserted myself into that conversation, but I just thought how horrible it could have been if it all had happened ten minutes earlier and we'd had the playground full of students.

I didn't really have the gumption for much else so I went back to my classroom and planned what my students will make their mothers for Mother's Day.