Applying safety skills is crucial

Everyone expects schools to teach academic skills, but we teach so much more than content knowledge and procedures.  I recently received the following letter in US Mail.  It will explain exactly what I mean.

Dear Mr. Ascher

First of all, a very happy 2016 to you and the school staff!

Until my very talkative youngest son went to Kindergarten class last school year,  I  confess I did not know that Novi Woods also holds tornado and lock down drills in addition to fire drills.  He came home and chattered about hiding in the bathroom for the tornado drill, as well as going to the kitchen for the lock down drill, and that they had to remain very quiet.  As a parent, of course, I am very happy that our school is taking all of these safety precautions for the kids.

This past Christmas night, we were in Orlando, Florida.  Specifically, we were seated at the back of a restaurant in Disney Springs, when diners at the front of our restaurant started screaming and running further inside the restaurant.  Our restaurant staff locked the front doors and evacuated all diners through the kitchen doors in the back to the construction site outside.  The rumour was that there was a gunman outside the front doors.  My two sons were confused and frightened, and my youngest asked me what a gunman was.  Beside us was a frantic mother, finally having some success calming down her hysterical, sobbing daughter.

Oh!  How much I appreciated the Novi Woods drills at that point of time!  I squatted down to look my boy in the eyes, and said, “Do you remember, in Kindergarten, there was a lock down drill, and all of you had to stay inside the kitchen?  You were not supposed to laugh, cry, joke, cry, fight, make any other noise or wander away by yourself, so that the bad guy wouldn’t find you?  This is exactly the situation, the gunman is the bad guy, and he has a gun to shoot people with.  This is the time to remember and apply what you have been taught.”  And both kids understood!  For the duration of the incident, my boys behaved as were expected of little Blue Ribbon-grade Novi Woods leaders.  It was the first time I would have proudly admitted it, had I been in Novi, and someone cared to ask…but no one around us knew Novi Woods, and sensibly speaking, it was neither the time nor place to be bragging about our school.  We were eventually herded back inside the restaurant per Disney Springs’ lock down policy, and were informed that it was a false alarm.  We quickly finished up our dinner and began the hour-long trial of getting out of Disney Springs’ parking garage.

It was not a Christmas night I had expected, but for me, it ended up with gratitude.  Thankful that it was only a fistfight in another restaurant, not real shooting and most people were unhurt.  Thankful that my boys were able to remain calm in the face of danger, and that we would all live past 2015 to welcome the year 2016.

So thank you again, Mr. Ascher, and all the staff, for taking care of ALL of our kids, not just academically, but also making sure that they are always safe and prepared.

Many thanks to the family who share this experience with me.  I asked for their permission to share their letter with everyone as a learning opportunity for their own families.

Keeping my school safe is my absolute #1 priority.  We do regular fire drills, tornado drills, and unfortunately, we need to do lockdown drills.  I'm grateful to our entire community and our local police department who help in many ways.  Safety, however, is a regular expectation that should not be reserved just for drills.  When we teach kids routines to listen or to follow directions either in class, in the halls, on the  bus, or on the playground, we are beginning to teach safety procedures.  

Safety and the routines needed to keep people from harm should become second nature to all of us.

Let's hope we never need to use any of the lessons we've learned in our drills, but let's never forget their value.