Pano perspective

Administration should improve intruder safety training to ensure student and faculty safety

17 out of 20 Panorama staff members agree

Since preschool, fire drills have been a constant event, recurring multiple times each school year. The familiar ringing of the alarm and the crowded, but calm walk to the nearest exit has become almost a second nature to students and faculty. But when there hasn’t been a death from a fire in a school since 1958, and guns are the leading cause of death for children and teens, it leads one to wonder if the amount of intruder drills needs to be increased. In a world where school shootings have become a shockingly normalized occurrence, clear-cut exits and strategies have become just as necessary as any core curriculum.

According to the Washington Post, as of April 3, more than 349,000 students have been affected by gun violence at school. There are infinite circumstances students may need to prepare for in the event of an armed intruder, and while impossible to adequately prepare for every situation, it is not enough to only practice an escape route in one class. More comprehensive safety training and planning are undoubtedly needed.

The Four E’s — Educate, Evade, Escape and Engage — is a plan of action that students can follow in the event of an emergency. However, the most problematic of the Four E’s, engage, is an anxiety-inducing prospect that puts students in possible danger. Though administration made it clear this is a last resort, it is possible that with better planning engaging may be avoided even more. As opposed to spending our time scouring the room for possible weapons, our time would be better spent planning safe routes out, therefore undoing some of the stress student’s experience from the protocol that encourages student-led engagement with an active intruder.

Though preparedness may never be total, further information and practice on how to exit any Ladue building would help to increase our ability to evade an intruder and in turn, lead to a feeling of preparedness and security.

Time would be better used by reviewing maps of the schools with visual displays of exits as well as drills from all class periods throughout the day, so students and faculty know how to exit the building safely from any room at any time.

Ladue’s administration has made massive progress in terms of increasing the amount of safety training, but progress can still be made.

School should be a place where stress is minimal and caused by tests and quizzes, not the fear of not knowing how to escape in the event of an intruder.

School systems, in general, must do better at preparing all students and faculty for intruder emergencies as it is not only crucial in alleviating unease, but also in saving lives.