Intruder Drills: What a Joke

In the aftermath of the Columbine High School shooting, the Hazelwood school district, as well as many others no doubt, implimented a new set of drills for incase there is an intruder. And I have held off on actually rambling about them for quite some time. We had one on Friday, as a matter of fact, which I had practically forgotten about as soon as it was over.

I was reminded of it this morning when in first hour a classmate in the row right behind me and my friend Brenn mentioned how he got written up during Friday's intruder drill, and I went "How'd you do that, go out into the hall and go 'we're hiding in here!'?"

All joking almost aside, I'd say the intruder drills are similar in nature to the hide under your desk in the event of a nuclear attack: Utterly ridiculous. The intruder drills are just as unrealistic as the former nuclear attack drills from decades ago. Like all drills they do not conduct them during 4th and 5th hour, when there are the various lunch shifts. And one of the things about Columbine was it was during a lunch shift. Not to mention, people will know school is in session anyway. A locked door will not stop someone determined to hit a specific target or just random targets of opportunity.

The drills promote the illusion of safety; the self delusion many of us indulge in that we are in a place where we do not have to worry about harm. Now, being a school that's mostly true, unless you count the people who get picked on by their classmates, but that's a whole other topic entirely.