Students and teachers tested during tornado drill

The Missouri Center for Safe Schools is completing an eight-teen month grant to help train the students and teachers for any type of emergency. On Tuesday the alarms bellowed through the halls of Harry S. Truman Elementary halls with more than three hundred students gather in the hallways. Russell Thompson of the Missouri Center for Safe Schools states, “We were either going to do a tornado drill, a fire drill, or an intruder drill.” The main goal is to train and teach not only the student but the teachers what to do in case of any scenario. Teaching the teachers what to do if there is a child or two missing during these drills gives the drill an edge of reality.

It makes me feel more comfortable knowing my grandchildren are being prepared for many types of disasters that might occur. I am always concerned with how the schools handle so many children in situations such as fire, tornado or intruder. I have always thought that putting the children in a hallway for a tornado was very inappropriate. I believe that the new schools being built should have storm shelters or safe rooms for both tornadoes and intruders.

This has changed the way I felt previously, regarding how our children are cared for everyday in the school and what they are prepared for whatever the future holds for us. As http://www.fox14tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=11269736 states, “The Center for Safe Schools says reality like hiding the children can keep student and teachers from becoming complacent during the drills.” This shows me that they are doing all that they can to try to protect what means so much to us, our children. Children are unpredictable and so are tornadoes or fires, and most of all intruders. I know without a doubt that everyone can’t be completely prepared for all that is or could happen but this helps prepare for some possibilities. I applied for a job as a Teaching Assistant to a school that my children attended for many years, as I approached the school I grabbed the handle to the door and it would not open. I heard a voice ask my name and then they buzzed me in. Although I was a bit flabbergasted as to the lock down procedure the longer I thought about it I came to realize this is what our world has come to, this is what we have to do to protect our children. The days of walking into the classroom and getting your children are done. The kidnappers, murderers, terrorist and rapist have forced our society to lock down our children for their own protection.

I feel much safer as to the procedures the schools are taking with our children as I read this article, knowing my grandchildren are as safe as could be expected. From my school days to today life has changed and became much more dangerous and with this danger must come protection. You would rather be safe than sorry.