Blockdown on Lockdowns: The War on Protecting Kids Expands.

As the anti-vaxxers push forward and celebrate any small, Pyrrhic victory against the health of the American people and their schoolchildren, another guerrilla group has raised its head and opened a second front in the ever-growing war against reason.

These adherents criticize lockdowns for a number of purported ill effects on some students. The drills create anxiety. Students suffer non-physical trauma as their classrooms go dark and they head for the floors. The thought that an active shooter could be roaming the halls instead of security checking on the protocol compliance creates emotional and mental issues, especially for those already suffering a pre-existing condition. Unlike the irrational army of the anti-vaxxers, this group, though TGBL disagrees strongly with their raison d’etre, stands on more terra firma.

TGBL recognizes and understands that some students somewhere may be upset by lockdown drills. There are students who are terrified of being in a new school. Others need psychological help when they don’t make the elite HS. In some cases, a suicide prevention visit to classrooms is needed. There’s criminal activity in schools affecting the mental health of both staff and students. Domestic instability enters schools every morning like overstuffed baggage weighing down the ability to deal. Airlines conduct a safety drill before every takeoff, covering depressurized cabins and water landings. Good luck to the young and afflicted with fear of flying on that one.

Safety drills have always been conducted in schools. Fire drills are now called evacuation drills. Schools still run shelter drills. Medical emergency drills. If a lockdown drill triggers a traumatic response in kids, the problem may have more to do with related issues, such as maturity, phobias, a personal trauma—all affect students’ mental and emotional health. Counseling individuals and preparing the student body for lockdowns will ease concerns and facilitate an effective drill. However, the bigger problem may be the students who don’t take the drills seriously rather than the ones who claim anxiety.

Arenas, stadia, theatres now preface an event with an announcement of emergency plans in case of evacuation. We do not stop emergency preparedness because someone gets nervous over it. There is a compelling state and collective interest in drills to protect the community. An attacked school not doing drills would have much to answer for to parents, media, and the lawyers filing suit. The worst thing a school can do, educationally, legally, and from a public relations standpoint, is to do nothing.  

During the current crisis of sheltering-in and talk of lockdowns, kids may cope better because they are familiar with acute crises exercises and the need to adapt. School safety drills familiarize students with different emergency responses, and manage the darker side of life’s reality.

TGBL will be watching both fronts in the battle to protect kids and community.