I don't envy the jobs that school administrators have to do these days. Not only is there enormous pressure for academic success, but now a big part of the job is dealing with security threats.
Yesterday at the elementary school our kids attend, students apparently found a threatening message and as a result the entire school was evacuated for nearly an hour as school administrators and police made sure the building was safe.
Our second-grader was affected both by the commotion and all the talk about it among his fellow students. How do you explain to a child that no one is going to "blow up the school" without being able to offer 100% absolute guarantees? We did the best we could to explain how the school is kept safe and to tell him that we wouldn't send him to school every day if we didn't think it was a safe place to be. But still, he was up several times last night expressing concern and asking legitimate questions about his school.
It's concerning that these kinds of threats and their effects have now become part of the everyday life of school kids as much as doing homework and going out for recess. We want the kids to be alert and aware of potentially harmful situations - but how do we keep them from becoming desensitized? Yesterday's incident was most certainly nothing more than a prank from a neighborhood kid -- but these kinds of things are just not in any way funny considering all the indirect harm it does to our kids.
It stinks to have to put your kids on the bus and having to tell them it's okay to go to school and that they'll be safe there because they question those basic facts at such a young age. Especially when you're less than 100% certain of that yourself.
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