Excitement of the Day

So I am finishing up sorting out my room at school. Today was to be the last day (probably still will be). Anyway, before school started this morning, the construction crews across the street ruptured a natural gas line. So they wouldn't let any cars down the street, but they would let the parents drop their kids off out at the street barricade and walk in. The school went into "Shelter-in-Place" and all teachers had to get all of their kids out of the halls and into their rooms. They had gas company trucks and crews, fire trucks, 5-6 police cars, and all kinds of fun stuff going on out there. Part of the intercom system is down, so some rooms were not getting updates (as in notification that the shelter in place was over). This is all taking place maybe 20 feet out from the curb , dead center, right in front of the school.

Once the emergency response people left, and the situation was over, the office waited a while to lift the shelter in place. Then all of the kids who eat breakfast at school had to go to the cafeteria for breakfast. Many others, who saw an opportunity to escape from their teachers for awhile, took the opportunity to go to breakfast. So they had a larger than usual group at breakfast. The way meals are served at our school, because of the poverty level, no one pays. So they don't track who does or doesn't eat breakfast, only a daily number count. Vickie's 5th grade group was half an hour late for Library. So although I'm technically not here, I helped out in front of the school and at breakfast to supervise kids.

Wording in the announcements going out over the intercom wasn't real clear as to what the teachers were supposed to do (or even what the problem was). They never used the actual words "lock down" or "shelter-in-place" so teacher's weren't sure what to do. In a normal (what's normal about an emergency) situation during a lock down or S-I-P, teachers lock the doors and don't let anyone in, for any reason. Since this happened before school actually started we still had lots of kids arriving, they needed to do a modified S-I-P where teachers continue to let kids in, but nobody out. Since communication was bad, and in some cases incomplete ( those rooms with non-functioning intercoms), there was more chaos than there should have been.

Fun Fun Fun