From terrorism to tornadoes, schools prepare for the worst

When Melissa Bear's fifth graders hear "shelter-in-place" repeated over the loudspeaker of their classroom in Hollisield Station Elementary, in Ellicott City, Md., they know exactly what to do. They've practiced shelter-in-place, otherwise known as the intruder drill, twice already this year.

As Bear locks the classroom doors and windows, the students sit quietly at their desks in one of four drills the class has on regular rotation. The others are the standard fire drill, the modified lockdown and duck, cover and hold on—-each one designed to prepare for different natural or man-made disasters.

School safety drills date back to the days of the Cold War and the threat of a nuclear attack. But in the wake of incidents like the 1999 Columbine School shooting and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a new brand of drills has been developed to protect students from dangers without and within their buildings. Students are preparing for everything from tornadoes and earthquakes to chemical spills and terrorist attacks.

As the list of threats grows--California's Sonoma County school district lists 16 potential threats--ensuring facility security while fostering a warm and nurturing learning environment has become a delicate balancing act.

“Are we frightening our children?” asked Dr. Ted Feinberg, the assistant executive director of the National Association of School Psychologists. “It’s certainly a question I get asked with some frequency.”

To address this concern, the Department of Homeland Security in collaboration with the Ad Agency and Scholastic Inc. launched the Ready Kids program on Feb. 2 to help parents and teachers address emergency-preparedness issues with students in age-appropriate ways.

"A lot of students are already alarmed," Ron Stephens, the director of the National School Safety Center (NSSC) in Westlake Village, Calif., said of student anxiety over emergency drills. "But there is a sense of release when they are prepared to deal with a crisis."

Terry Longoria, director of the Safe School's Healthy Student Program for the Napa County Office of Education in California, agrees. "You have to tailor everything to what students can cope with," she said. "But you have to tell them everything.”

While some educators believe that preparation yields peace of mind, others shy away from adopting the new drills. Kevan Webb, the principal of Fredericksburg Middle School in Fredericksburg, Texas, has a monthly fire drill and tornado drills once or twice a year. But he doesn’t do the intruder drill. "Kids feel enough anxiety," Webb said, "without practicing that someone is going to come in and terrorize them."

But since Sept. 11, terrorism has been infused into school safety concerns. The NSSC, for example, defines schoolyard bullying as a kind of terrorism. The group adopted Homeland Security recommendations for schools to “be vigilant, take sensible precautions and remain productive.”

Craig Zachlod, the director of school safety for the Mendocino County school district in California, said the focus in school emergency drills has clearly shifted with the priorities in Washington.

“One of the big arguments in the school safety debate,” Zachlod said, “is that when the current administration came into office, the emphasis shifted from natural disasters to terrorism. While some of us may be affected by terrorism, it is more likely that a natural disaster will hit one of our communities.”

Zachlod developed schoolguard.org, an online resource for school emergency preparedness information.

But whether terrorism represents a greater threat than other dangers, Zachlod suggests that many disasters share similar preparation drills so it is best to have an “all hazards approach.”

“We practice for everything," he said, "so that we are prepared for anything.”

Since 2003, the federal Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools has awarded 343 grants of $50,000 to $500,000 to local school districts for emergency planning. So far, OSDF has received about 300 applications, and last year it awarded 93 grants.

In Gasconade County, Mo., a rural community 80 miles west of St. Louis, Mark Leach, the school district’s assistant superintendent, received a $105,594 grant from the program. Located 30 miles from a nuclear-energy plant, Gasconade County schools will expand their natural disaster drill repertoire to include hazardous spill and intruder drills.

"Our interest was probably generated by 9/11," Leach said, "because it put an awareness that [terrorism] can happen to anybody, anywhere.”

The Lincoln, Neb., public school district has been upgrading its safety plans since 1997. But recently, when a tornado leveled a neighboring town and a young man came to a school in a nearby district with explosives, the focus on safety intensified. Last year, the 32,000-pupil district received a $329,000 OSDF grant.

“In general, there are higher expectations to provide safer environments when you serve the public,” said Becky Wild, Lincoln's director of student services. Wild said that a portion of the federal grant would go to evaluating how the new safety procedures were affecting student anxiety levels.

For Bear’s fifth graders, drills are routine now. But when John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo terrorized the Washington area with sniper attacks in 2002, the school used the modified lockdown for real for two weeks.

“At the time, they were a little scared,” Bear said, “and there was a lot of anxiety right afterward. But now, the kids aren’t even startled by [the drill] anymore.”

E-mail: meo2105@columbia.edu