They never tell you in grad school how to handle bomb threats to your school. Yesterday we had a bomb threat at our school, causing them to evacuate the school for three hours. Cops were called in, and I have to say – they really did thoroughly check the school. Once the teachers were allowed back in, all the cabinets and doors in our classroom were left open from the search.
The whole ordeal was crazy though. The threat was called towards the end of the school day, which meant that AT FIRST – the kids thought it was awesome. An excuse to miss class? Few of them are upset about that. It wasn’t until the school day was over, and the police still wouldn’t let anyone leave that they got mad. Since the parking lot for students and teachers were so close to the building, no one was allowed to get their car and leave until the whole thing was cleared, which was about 5pm.
Talking about it with my students today, it was so funny to hear their reactions. The consensus was “that sucked,” especially the ones who had to leave their backpacks and belongings in the school overnight. (Kids who left before the building was re-opened had to leave everything in the classroom they were in when the evacuation alarm went off) I personally was freaking out since I had left car keys and my cell in the class, not realizing that it was a real alarm and not just a practice drill.
The one crazy thing though was how quickly the news spread outside of the school. For the most part, the kids are inseparable from their phones – meaning that unlike me, they were smart enough to have their phones when the alarm went off. So when the administrators evacuated us to the football field, the kids were on their phones calling parents, updating their facebook statuses, and texting everyone and their mom about it. Phones have come a long way since I was in high school, and it was such a start contrast from any similar drills I went through. It’s both really cool and scary how much technology connects people now.