Thursday, March 5, 2009

Lockdown

Like my normal telecommuting days I dropped Lolly off at school today. I notice a lot of police cars and officers around the school. Immediately, lead foot that I am, think they are there to remind us not to speed in a school zone. I pull up to the school, notice an assistant principal standing out front drop, Lolly off right at front door and asst principal. Go home and start working in my home office, listening to the radio in background, the usual. Some 3 hours later, a co-worker calls "Is MC alright?" Huh? "The schools on lockdown, go to ajc.com". This is what I find.

My stomach falls out. No answer at the school. Relay info to Mister. Receive text from one of Lolly's friends, everyone ok, lockdown, being dismissed. (which was exactly right, only those students, whose parents came to pick them up, everyone else finished out the day). Thank goodness not all students adhere to the no cell phones at school rule.

Still don't have the all the details. My number one question is why in God's name did they let us drop the kids off if they knew something was going down. That asst principal could have easily stuck her head in the window and said keep going. This wasn't a case where school started and then a lockdown happened. This was lockdown from the minute they hit the front door. Lockdown at the high school, lockin at the middle school is what I believe they told me. (the schools are connected by a hallway) Some parents dropped off their middle schoolers off, then proceeded to the high school to drop off but where turned away and not allowed to go back for the middle schooler, could you imagine?

As we waited in line to collect our kids, they asked do you have any questions to which there were no real good answers. Played off like everything is ok, the kids are in class. That's cause we were lucky this time. Honestly at this point I don't think they could have given me an answer good enough on why they didn't turn us away.

The whole thing makes me sick to my stomach. The thought of what if, and that I was naive enough to drop her off at school, just thinking that the police presence had to do with speed awareness. How does a kid get a gun that size, where are the parents, how did these kids get so disenchanted with life?

I will be forever thankful that someone tipped off the police and that the police took it seriously. As I listen to Lolly and a friend laughing upstairs, she seems no worse for wear. Her momma, on the other hand is looking forward to a good long cry once Lolly is safely asleep tonight.


4 comments:

The Pink Chick said...

How horrible! What a scary situation! I am so, so glad that everyone is safe! I can't understand why the school didn't warn you when you dropped Lolly off!

Sherrie said...

That is so strange that they had you drop your dd off when there was a lockdown in progress. I teach middle school and cannot imagine them doing that (in the case where you were right there). Glad everyone is OK and there was no incident.

Tara said...

Heard about this on the news earlier. So scary!!! I would be worried sick too!

Kim said...

Our UPS man told us about it when he dropped off a package. Holy cow. Although I think it was probably safer to drop them all off rather than have the mass hysteria of parents going crazy, even though it seems stupid.

I'm glad somebody told, too. I used to volunteer at the front desk at our HS, and I was amazed at how many kids would narc on their friends. Good for them.