I remember doing the bomb drills. I also remember our teachers discussing our proximity to Ohare airport, and "ground zero" etc. I remember saying well, if it is gonna be THAT bad, I prefer to be AT ground zero.
Our elem and middle school, and the jail across the street, we are at the end of town, the edge, - also the edge of the county and not far from the edge of the state. My house is south of schools, and north and west there is nothing...wide open, fields,orchards.....(corn, apples, cows). A creek runs thru.....with a footbridge at the end of my block..with very high steep banks. It curves a lot and also has a road bridge over it a block down. I think our schools got nervous after ---ummmm.... Laurie Dann?
about 15 years ago - just when they were building the new elem bldg, they found a newborn baby body on the grounds where the elem school is now. I remeber oldest difficult child telling me one day "mommy, they found a dead baby behind the school, in the field" I remember not believeing her. It was true, and they never did ID that baby. We get a lot of 18 wheeler truck traffic here.....going every which direction. You can make it to 3 diff states from here with ease.
Bsides the courthouse and jail here, there is also the wastewater treatment plant on the back side of school grounds.
Our HS is built in an eually strange place, in my opinion. We have an old fashioned town square...the HS is just off the square. Next door to the HS is our old hospital. It has been converted into a physical therapy rehab nurseing home AND the psychiatric unit for the county.
Then those 2 buildings are surrounded by residential single family homes.
A couple years ago, someone became disgruntled with the psychiatric unit, and walked in, and set the receptionist on fire, she died 3 weeks later. I do not know who decided to put the elem and middle school just across the 2 lane road from courthouse and jail, or why the HS is butting up against the psychiatric unit. Makes no sense to me.
I am sure for my district, that might explain why they stay locked, and why they practice lockdowns often. BUT I know other schools in the county are also pretty frequent in being in true lockdowns and doing drills.
We get no notice. We DO get notices for TB, chicken pox, measles, MRSA, strep....menigitis.....Curently we have 4 students with MRSA.....(on wrestling team) and there are 2 cases of meningitis nearby.
Hmmm, ya know? Our special education district for the county is here next door to the National Guard Amory.
No, our kids cannot walk to anywhere, for one thing, lunch is 12 minutes long, and for another noone can come of go from the building. Docs MUST write a note, and then you MUST get a seperate labeled bottle to give to the school. With a letter from doctor. ANd it cannot be a faxed letter. That is required for EVERY medication. does not matter if it is Rx or OTC. Then the child MUST remember to go to the school nurse at the doseing time..otherwise the child does not get dosed. The parent must bring the medication in and hand it to the nurse, and the parent must come to school and get it from the nurse. (if the medication is no longer needed)
I know what else- sunglasses- NOT allowed. After my son had his surgery, he had dark glasses for awhile, and yeesh, he really got a lot of harrassment over wearing his dark glasses..got sent to the office a LOT.
Our school buildings have windows, with glass, but they do not open. They also do not have air conditioning and in end of school year and beginning of school year, the school can get dangerously hot...(the HS is 4 stories, all brick) and of course, tank tops are not allowed and dresses are not allowed for elem school girls. Go Figure. LOL- when I was in school, girls could not wear pants, now they cannot wear dresses. Yeesh.
A few years ago our elem school had a gas pipe leak..they evacuated the kids to parking lot.....and kept them there all day. They did not close school, did not notify parents......
The kids never even told me, I heard about it when the lady next door who runs day care out of her house was um, when a teacher was picking up her kids next door. The teacher was telling the neighbor, and becuz neighbors driveway butts to my house, I could hear them.