In my high school classroom, I kept a plush pig (huggable-size) that my wife had knitted for me, because I’m random like that. We had an actual lockdown which lasted about three hours. My students were huddled under the desks, and one of them started crying from the tension. I had no idea what to do, so I grabbed it…

Because as a country we looked at what happened at Sandy Hook and decided we were ok with it.

My husband lost a co-worker to a shooting at his workplace. He was lucky not to be at that location that day. Fuck your statistics.

Years ago I was teaching out in a portable. We had a lock down drill about a week before Halloween. Then on Halloween, our VP, who was dressed as the Big Bad Wolf, decided to scare the classes out in the portables by coming in unexpectedly through our, usually locked, back doors.

School shootings are rare, but gun homicides are not (in the US). You have about the same chance of dying in a gun homicide as in a car crash in the US. That’s 25x higher than in other Western industrialised countries. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/14/upshot/compare-these-gun-death-rates-the-us-is-in-a-different-worl…

I am the room mom for my daughter’s kindergarten class and happened to be in the class during their first of two active shooter drills. We split the kids into two groups and one went in the closet with the teacher and one came with me in the bathroom. If there isn’t a second adult in the room (which is 90% of the…

I’m 7 months pregnant with a 3 year old. Seeing those babies out in the field holding hand. I’m teary and super angry at the same time.

My kindergartner told me they play Hide and Seek with the police and then went into enough detail about where and how they hide that I almost had a fucking panic attack thinking about it.

I’ve posted about it before, but I used to be the gatekeeper to an elementary school, checking everyone’s IDs and then buzzing them…

I still have nightmares about the conference I had after my then two-year-old failed her first active shooter drill. They hid in a closet and closed the door, and she freaked out and began screaming.

As a parent, knowing that there are amazing caring teachers like you willing to protect my child in a potential terrible situation makes it a little easier to sleep at night. Bless you and thank you.

That’s a brilliant idea. I hate that it’s such a brilliant idea.

You have no idea how much I hate that I’m here telling you that your plan is brilliant and thank you for caring about your kiddos so much. Also considering carrying a couple lollipops in my purse just in case I need to keep my own kids quiet in an emergency sometime.

I keep a bag of lollipops in the filing cabinet near where they have to be quiet. In the event that it wasn’t a drill or went on for a really long time, everyone is getting something stuck in their mouths. You have no idea how much I hate that I have a plan for that scenario.

I was teaching pre-k in a public school immediately after Sandy Hook and we had the 3-4 year olds doing “lockdown” drills. Trying to keep one 3 year old quiet for five minutes is difficult; keeping 12, including several with special needs, silent is a nightmare.

I assumed the same. My mind went into gender norms, and I thought an elementary school teacher? Probably young and female. And domestic violence was involved probably her husband/boyfriend/ex.

80% of K-8 teachers are women. 91% of people who murder their family members are men. Statistically, your assumption is extremely likely.

If carrying out a murder-suicide of your partner isn’t enough to flag you as a miserable waste of humanity, try doing it in front of a classroom full of children aged 5 to 11.

I’m already assuming the shooter’s a white male.

Is it wrong that I am making the assumption in my head that the shooter is a man and the teacher is a woman? I mean that seems to be what the odds are, but I shouldn’t assume that, right?