Kevin Sporici ‘20
Photo courtesy of Trisha Tsundupalli ‘21
Every EA student knows the experience of sitting in the corner of a dark classroom, awaiting the PA announcement ending the lockdown drill. These drills can seem quite uneventful and students are often oblivious to the real challenges and the sheer level of coordination that it takes to lock down an entire school campus.
It is safe to say that the general preconception regarding lockdowns is that they are a response to an active shooter situation. While this is definitely true, there are actually a variety of situations that would warrant a lockdown.
Michael Letts, Head of Upper School, explains that “It could be a situation where there’s a fire that breaks out [and …] we don’t want students entering the campus green because they might interfere with firefighters or put themselves in danger. It could be a chemical spill or any number of safety hazards. We just want to know that all the students are in one location.”
The situation does not need to be confined to EA specifically. “It might not even be an issue that’s immediately on our campus,” says Joe Shanahan, Director of Campus Safety. “If there was police activity near the campus. For example, maybe they’re looking for a fugitive. In that case, we’d definitely be locking our doors and at least going into a lockout. The goal would be to keep everyone inside and seal off the building so that whatever problem exists outside is kept out there.”
Keeping potential problems outside of the buildings is the biggest challenge the school must overcome with such a large campus. With so many different buildings and entrances, lockdowns need to be instantaneous and easily communicable.
“[The school has] different individuals on staff that carry key fobs that can lock the campus down immediately wherever they’re at,” says Shanahan. “With these key fobs, all they have to do is waive it over one of our readers and it will lock down the campus. That also teams up with emails or a text notification that goes out to a specific group. I get that notification immediately and I know where it happened and who did it.”
These frequent lockdown drills and extensive security precautions are all done to protect and prepare everyone on campus, and they invoke many different reactions. Lee Billmyer, Upper School English teacher, states, “I really do want to be prepared. The entire time, I’m thinking, ‘What am I going to do to protect these precious youth in a situation like this?’ It’s overwhelming because I’m flooded with these thoughts.”
On the other hand, there are also people that do not take these drills very seriously. Ben Wesley ‘20 comments, “There’s definitely a purpose to [these drills] and they’re important. There’s just a mindset where people don’t take it seriously and I think it’s because they don’t think it would ever happen to them. But the reality is that it could.”
Nick Cerone ‘22 echoed a similar opinion saying, “I think it’s good that we practice lockdown drills in case of a situation in which we would need it. Although sometimes they aren’t taken very seriously, so that could be a problem.”
While sitting in a classroom, waiting for the all clear, it can be easy to take these lockdown drills for granted, But in the end, they are designed to prepare for the worst situations.
“[Lockdown drills] are completely random,” says Shanahan. “It’s truly a surprise to everybody. I want people to think on their feet. I think it’s a good thing. From a planning standpoint, I’m always looking to see what else can we do.”