[OT] Will the stupidity ever end?!

[RakeRon]

I just found out some seriously disturbing news about whats going on in my old high school witch my sister currently attemds as a senior. The public school board, in light of current war status & past terriorist events, has issues two new drills witch they've given code names: Yellow & Red. Besides your usual fire drill they now have one, Yellow, wich you're suppose to walk out to the football field bleachers with your hands in the air as if you're surrendering to someone (terrorists). Note: the football field is surrounded by two sets of bleachers (home & away teams) witch is a VERY open area. If there was a possible threat that caused a code yellow and terrerists were to surface it would be easy killings.. practically manslaughter or even executions! Then there is my personal favorite: Code Red (no not the soda): this is where everyone goes to the nearest classroom and shuts all the windows, blinds, and doors. When the rooms are totally closed off, every huddles into the corner. And as we all know the teacher(s) are usually in the center of this huddle so the students are basicly turned into a meat shield for the teacher(s). If this is the future of our educational system where our children have to be taught in these kinds of drills which basicly strait out and say "Hey, Im a kid. I'm expendable regardless of innosence during war. I can't fight back to protect me & my friends because the school tells me so. I'm a meat shield." I rather work 90 hours a week to have my future kids home schooled by a good tutor.

 

[starwolf]

nt

 

[Mercule]

Well, this thread is all but closed already.

I decline to comment on my opinion because it would probably not only get the thread closed, but me banned as well. Suffice it to say that our choice for our kids was either private school or home school.

 

[I'm A Banana]

It hasn't quite gotten political yet, but it might in short order, so I'll resign my comments to the school's policy itself.

Indeed, huddling in a corner and walking out onto a football field seem...misled at best, outrightly incompetent at worst. The forms that terrorism can potentially take are so varied and manifold that no one repetative action or drill can possibly prepare you for what would happen.

I think on it's most basic level it's a security blanket...something that the parents or students can look at and go 'they care, they're trying.'

I do think it's probably misled. I'm not sure what kind of attacks they're expecting (or really why they're even expecting them, being a school and all), but I doubt that there will be (a) a warning or (b) an easy solution that can be solved with a drill.

Best thing to do is hop on the school board and make your voice heard to 'em. Also, most school boards are elected...get yourself out there. Make a change. Give them another way.

That's what I'd say.

--KM, hoping this thread doesn't entirely get shut, but looking to the Nutkinland if it (understandably) does.

 

[Psionicist]

Oh my that's stupid.

 

[mistergone]

Take a peek over at the "bionic goldfish" thread and then think hard about why it is that anyone is against massive sterilization programs. I mean, besides that such programs would be totally ethically and morally wrong.

 

[Olive]

I think

a) you're over reacting

and

b) if you want your country to turn into a place where nothing ever gets done, then thinking of every circumstance as 'but what if terrorists attacked!' is a good way to do it. Moving people onto a field during a fire drill seems apropriate to me.

 

[ShadowX]

This is like the duck and cover drills from the 1950's that were supposed to protect you from nuclear attacks. Its just to create a feeling of safety, but its rather useless if something actually happened. I mean how often does a terrorist let you have enough time to get out of the building?

 

[Shawn Carman]

I teach in elementary school, and the "Code Red" that you are describing sees wide use (and has for years) in its more pedestrian form as a lock-down. These drills started in response to the frequency of people showing up in public schools with guns. They really took off after the Columbine incident a few years ago.

I have to take issue with your "meat shield" comment. I'm proud to say that I don't know of a single teacher who would willingly put a student in harm's way for their own protection. It's not like we go into this field for the prestige or money, after all. Speaking only for myself, my assistant has the job of herding my kids into the corner (where they cannot be seen from the windows or door in the event of someone with a weapon coming into the school). My job is to go out in the hallway and make sure there are no students in the bathrooms who will be locked out and left defenseless. My room, by the way, is about twenty feet from the office, where the person with the gun will be in the event that a situation like this occurs. So no "meat shield" for me.

Before anyone asks, there have been times during my four years teaching so far that we have had legitimate concerns at the school where I teach. I won't go into specifics, but there have been two or three times when we were genuinely concerned that there were people in town headed our way with the intent to cause mayhem. Fortunately, it's never happened.

Remember that stereotypes and broad generalizations, while easy to make and often amusing, are rarely accurate.

The preceding comments have nothing to do with my affiliation with the Alderac Entertainment Group.

Shawn Carman
L5R Story Team

 

[Darrin Drader]

Sounds like you just uncovered a terrorist sleeper or even an entire sleeper cell. Obviously training students to surrender so that terrorists can kill them easier, or huddle around the one person in the classroom who is supposed to protect them is the work of the diabolical terrorists themselves to make executing their whacked out agenda that much easier. Turn them in to the Dept. of Homeland Security and get those terrorist school board members under the microscope where they belong.