First-aid training and further teacher education were just some part of what the Barrington High School staff took part in during the active shooter drill March 23. The Barrington Police and Fire department each attended to make it a more “realistic” drill.

“Having the police and fire department there elevated the whole training to a ‘real-time’ level. I really enjoyed the live incident training with the ‘active shooter.’ It helped me look at things from a different perspective,” Melissa Martin said.

As our society evolves, these kinds of drills become ever so relevant. Drills like this show teachers how to respond in the case of a live shooter present in the building. A plan for next year, as required by law, is to add students into this type of drill.

According to the Daily Herald, “All schools must conduct at least one active shooter safety drill led by law enforcement personnel yearly within 90 days of the first day of school. All school personnel and students present at the time of the drill must participate.”

Is this what our society is becoming? Teaching students to run and hide in the case where a gun is brought into the building? Kids should not have to worry about whether or not they are going to survive the school day. To what effect does this sort of potential violence play in the school setting?

It should play none; students come to school to learn, to grow their education and to set themselves up for success. However, with this added factor of looming potential violence, teachers and students can never seem to be too cautious.

“Yes. I was hesitant about [the drill] at first because I wasn’t sure how ‘prepared’ it would really make me feel. I thought that it would be distressing and cause anxiety without really preparing me for the reality of what an active shooter situation would actually be like,” English Teacher Moria Quealy said. “However, I can say that it was really helpful to be faced with the situation, and I feel so much less anxious post-drill because I don’t feel helpless.”

Hall monitors, for example, our student officer and teachers all work to keep students safe and educated. If we all know how to act in a situation like this, the better we become educated, the safer we become. In other words, do we need tighter security to keep everyone safe? If there were no guns or even stricter gun regulations, then we wouldn’t have any need for tight security. I hope this helps sparks people’s interests in not only creating a safer school setting, but also a safer world. It all starts with one small step and I believe that the first small step in creating safer schools.

*Many of the responses above are from a The RoundUp survey, sent out to all teachers directly after the active shooter drill took place. I would like to thank everyone who took the time to share their responses.