If Your Kid Was in Danger at School... Would You Even Know?

As a parent today, do you fear danger in school? Recently, I’ve had to ask myself that question.

The answer, sadly, is yes.

At 2:00 pm last Friday I was sitting in the car line playing Candy Crush. This is a hard thing for me to admit but I had forgotten to bring a book, and I can’t just sit in my car with my own thoughts sometimes. It just isn’t productive.

My phone started playing the cool guitar riff I have saved as the ring tone indicating my husband is calling. I answered casually, only expecting to hash out the who, what, when, where, and how of sports practices that night, and in the morning before he left for California.

Instead, he told me that he just received an alert from a local news station stating that eight schools in our county had been evacuated due to bomb threats. Were any of them ours?

I was sitting in the car line at the boys’ elementary school and everything looked fine. But what about the middle school my daughter attended?

Was she in danger?

I immediately hung up and pulled up the news report on my phone. It stated that eight elementary schools in the county (no middle schools) had been evacuated around 1:30pm after someone called 911 stating there were bombs placed in each of them.

I had the boys, and it even though I knew there were no middle school affected, it took quite a bit of restraint on my part not to drive over and pick my daughter up.

After my fears settled a bit, one question stood out… boldly.

Why were no calls placed through the school system advising parents of the threat to their children?

These are our children. We send them out the door and put them in the care of other people we barely know. But they are still our children, and if they are in danger, whether it turns out to be a hoax or not, we have the right to know.

There has been more than one occasion where my kids’ schools have been locked down. Do you know how I found out?

1) The elementary school my boys attend is 1/4 mile from my house. A police helicopter was flying over our area continuously after a bank a mile away had been robbed and the suspect was running. I called the school and was told my the school secretary that yes they were on lock down but they couldn’t give out any more information than that.

Are you f-ing kidding me?

2) I picked my daughter up from middle school one afternoon and she told me that the school had been locked down because there had been a robbery at a nearby location and the suspect was in the area.

Again, are you f-ing kidding me?

If my children, who make up the whole of my heart, are locked down in a school because there is a fleeing armed suspect in the area I want to know about it.

If there is a bomb scare, hoax or not, and my children are being evacuated from their school I want to know about it.

There is a phone system in place that places automated calls when my kids are absent from school. Where is the system to let me know that their lives might be in danger?

I’m ashamed our school board is too busy putting a new and unnecessary curriculum such as Common Core in place, and can’t be bothered to think above and beyond how they can make our educational system more difficult for our children, rather than how they can put a system in place to let parents know their children may not be safe in a day and age when violence in school is a reality.

I’m fairly certain that the last time I checked the astronomical taxes we pay go toward funding the public school system. So as a tax paying citizen may I make a suggestion:

Quit creating anxiety and frustration by changing a curriculum and system that the kids finally got used to, and take steps to keep them safer when they are in your care. You ask us to trust you

Give us a reason to.

Update: Since Friday, a neighboring county has fallen victim to the hoax bomb threats. I commend the schools’ staff members and law enforcement for taking steps to keep the students safe.

On Tuesday, our county’s school board approved a five-year, $664,269 upgrade the parent notification system, which would let schools send out mass phone, text, email, and web alerts to parents during emergencies. The school board states the upgrade should be in place within a few weeks.

Sandy is a wife/mom/cheerleader/chauffeur/tutor/referee/psychologist/nurse to five kids: hers, his and theirs. When she’s not on a sports field or court of some sort (or the laundry room), Sandy can be find writing about life in it’s sordid reality at Mother of Imperfection. You can also follow her crazy life on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram and Pinterest.