The Big Stuff: Active Shooters, Fights, Drugs and Alcohol
These are the types of things teachers have to watch for every minute of every day. There’s always a consciousness of our surroundings and an understanding that the atmosphere can turn on a dime. There’s that sixth sense that many teachers develop. You can sense the drama and tension in the air and know that something’s just not right.
I feel like we need a term for people who aren’t teachers, much like J.K. Rowling uses the term “muggles.” I’m just going to call them “regular people.” You see, regular people hear about things that happen in schools, but they don’t really believe it’s as bad as it seems. They think teachers must be exaggerating or making mountains out of mole hills. But regular people have probably never sat through a full day of Active Shooter Training.
Every year we sit through this training with police officers, even S.W.A.T. teams. They teach us to hear the difference in a locker slamming and a gunshot. This is even demonstrated by them shooting blanks in the hallway. We’re told how to best protect our students. We’re told to get down on the ground if we see an officer in the hallway because he’s going to “take us down” if we don’t and then run right past us to find the shooter. How many other professions have to do this every year? Do doctors, lawyers, insurance salespeople, plumbers, mechanics, I.T. professionals, etc. know the “Run, Hide, Fight” protocol? I imagine not.
And it’s true that active shooter situations are rare, but how many of us have heard a bang from the hallway and had our hearts stop for a second? How many of us have suddenly quieted our classes so that we could listen more closely to see if it was a gunshot? I know I have. And it’s scary.
But you know what else is scary? Breaking up a fight between two 180lb teenage boys. These are not scraps on a playground. These kids are out for blood, and they often get it. Fights between girls can be just as bad, sometimes worse. And there’s always the fear that a weapon somehow slipped through the metal detector (if your school even has one).
I honestly don’t know how many times by best friend, who teaches across the hall from me, has been sent to the doctor to get checked out because he was injured breaking up a fight. Does he press charges? No. He considers it part of his job. It’s enough to make anyone question their career choices.
And then there’s the drugs and alcohol. Back when I first started teaching, I had a student come to school completely out of it. As it turns out, he drank Pine Sol that morning. Yes, you read that right. PINE SOL. I had another who had marijuana on him, and before the principal could come to my class to deal with him, he ATE it and ended up in the nurse’s office a half hour later. Both of those incidents happened more than a decade ago.
Today, there are vapes and gummies and cookies and brownies and all manner of edibles to be on the lookout for. Students are leaving schools on stretchers because they smoked/ate something they shouldn’t have. Students are coming to class so high they can barely keep their eyes open, much less be expected to learn anything.
And what are the consequences of these actions? Twenty-five years ago, when I was a student, both fighting and drug use meant you left the school in handcuffs. Now, the consequence is maybe–maybe–a ten day suspension or being sent to an alternative school for a few weeks. Very rarely are students expelled anymore. There are hearings now–and expulsion committees who give chance, after chance, after chance.
Administrators are so concerned about parental blowback and lowering graduation rates that discipline takes a back burner. And honestly, I can’t really blame them for that. Administrators have to answer to the Superintendent, who answers to the School Board, who answers to the voters. It’s a societal change that needs to take place. Society needs to raise the behavioral expectations from students instead of raising the expectations for what educators should tolerate–instead of demanding we keep kids in school at any cost, even if that cost is a disruptive learning environment. Even if that cost is losing teachers.
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