My MIL (who works in a public elementary school) called to tell us about the training they’re receiving in her school district about what to do when there’s an armed gunman inside the school.
What she told me is deeply, deeply disturbing and destabilizing. Just look at what this link is called:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/armed-school-safety-guardian-training-polk-county-florida/
(this link isn’t about the place she lives or her school system, but it’s very similar to their program, and it was the best example I could find.)
IT’S A GOOD THING THEY GET SO MUCH TRAINING BEFORE RUNNING AROUND ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS WITH GUNS.
Imagine being a kid in a Florida school and knowing there is a white man (at least in her school it’s a white dude) in your school whose actual job is to shoot people. MIL got trained on where to stash her kids in her classroom so that the fewest of them would die, and what color piece of paper she should slide under the classroom door to let someone know that her kids were dying. She’s having a really hard time with this, AS SHE SHOULD.
Also she works in special ed and her kids are totally incapable of following the drill procedures (which can’t be done from a wheelchair). It is the WORST. It is TERRIFYING. It is crazy-making.
Seeing the inside of the training the adults get is INSANE. There is no way for people to do these procedures:
in case of active shooter, don’t call 911. Put this guy’s cell number in your phone and call him.
….yeah.
She has different places to put her (multiply-disabled) kids depending on what kind of gun the shooter has. WHAT KIND OF GUN!
She works with disabled elementary school students. And the message she got was to be fkcng terrified the whole time she’s at work, and also she needs to identify what kind of gun is shooting at her kids as she piles furniture in front of her door.
*rage*
Also she feels crazy… Because it is DESIGNED to make her feel crazy.
Her co-workers are like “It’s great, we’ll be so safe, this one guy will take care of us.”
(…unless he’s in the bathroom or something.)
The world is scary but we’ll be safe because we have GOOD GUYS WITH GUNS
GUYS WHOSE JOB IS TO SHOOT PEOPLE INSIDE AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
There’s no way That’ll go wrong.
There’s no way their EXTENSIVE training (see link above) would let them make a mistake and open fire on, say, a Sikh parent in a turban picking up his kid at a crowded school.
Yeah it’ll be fine
arrrrrrrrgh
She’s so upset and she can’t tell if she’s crazy or not.
I told her, NOT.
She said she’s the only one upset by it. It’s really really bad. Everyone else on the staff thinks the school’s designated shooter guy is just the greatest position to have.
She’s angry that the government is taking money from public schools to fund these positions (which don’t even get paid that much, considering their job is to shoot guns in an elementary school).
This attack of rage has been brought to you by our trashfire of a country, by the letter T, and by a high level of humidity. Down with humidity, down with pants. Smash the patriarchy. Can’t happen soon enough.
Grumpeteers, who’s got some rageterror to share?