What did we learn today kids?
If anything, March 3’s “Code Red, Code Blue” lockdown should prove to students that this small district places students’ safety and well being first. Everyone matters.
Rather than being afraid or alarmed, amused or even disinterested when the district required everyone in the building to follow the code red and blue procedures, students should feel reassured that those procedures are in place and are immediately followed to dramatically reduce the possibility of any real tragedy happening within the school when a security breach occurs.
Rather than being annoyed or feeling inconvenienced when students were required to prove parental authorization to leave at the end of the day if they didn’t take a bus, students and parents alike should feel confident that teachers, administrators, all other staff members, as well as state and local police did everything possible ensure that every student arrived home safely.
After the “Code Red” alert sounded fourth period and continuing into fifth period as Pittsburgh news and state police helicopters circled our building starting a little before 11:30 (presumably to get some video footage for the noon news), we also learned about the use and misuse of the cell phone. Students contacting parents to obtain permission to leave school at the end of the day if they weren’t taking a bus worked quite efficiently. After the quick assembly eighth period, most students knew within moments of calling someone exactly how they would or should arrive home.
But in spite of a stricter cell phone policy, text messages landed on phone screens reporting truths, half-truths, speculation and outright lies within moments after the code red alert sounded. The messaging continued throughout the day.
At one point after lunch, some students admitted receiving messages about the morning’s break-in and escape. They reported that the two intruders had really come into school because they planned to “get” (translation: do physical harm to) some teachers, had actually shot the principal in their escape, had hid a bomb or some dangerous and probably explosive package in the school before they escaped, had robbed a Leechburg bank after they left the school and had blown up the foot bridge to Hyde Park. And the best report of all: the two intruders also had time to stop at the IGA to rob it, but while there they also picked up some food because it had been a really busy morning and they were probably hungry.
As far as we know, no teachers were harmed, the principal is alive (and wasn’t even in the building at the time of the escape), no bombs or suspicious packages were found, no banks were robbed – neither was the IGA, and no bridges were blown up.
Obviously, many of the students’ stories fly in the face of logic. People often act illogically, believing even the most ridiculous things when faced with situations they are unsure or nervous about, especially as news helicopters hover above a building and camera operators and news crews stand outside.
What we do know is that items were stolen from the girls’ locker room. And both KDKA and WTAE news in Pittsburgh reported that police said one of the intruders is also wanted in the case of an armed home invasion in Vandergrift. Those two facts alone should cause students to stop and think.
We are a small school. Everyone knows everyone else. That fact worked in our favor since an alert teacher spotted the two intruders in the hall and immediately knew they did not belong in the school. We need to act similarly. If we see someone in the halls, in a restroom, in a locker room, anywhere in the school and we know that person does not belong here, we need to report it to a teacher or to the office without delay.
March 3, 2010, was a lucky day for the Leechburg Area School District. No one was hurt. We didn’t make the national news because of a school shooting or some other tragedy. We escaped harm.
But the incident that occurred March 3, 2010, should also serve as a lesson to students, all students, that frightening and even tragic things really could happen here – if we don’t use common sense . . . if we don’t take warnings seriously . . . if we aren’t careful.
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