As a new school year gets underway in Great Bend, students, staff and parents will all need to adjust to a new routine – even if this isn’t their first year in the district. One positive change involves lockdowns and other situations where action is needed.
Posters and drills will be used to explain the actions adults and students should take in the event of an emergency or other-than-normal situation. For example, if an ambulance is called to the school for a medical emergency, there is no need to disrupt a building’s entire routine. Everyone could be notified the school is on “Hold!” Students and teachers will clear the halls and stay in their rooms until an “All Clear” is announced while they do business as usual.
In the past, there have been occasions where schools were on lockdown as a precaution. One of the most recent was at the high school in February. The school was already conducting a lockdown drill when a threatening telephone call was placed to GBHS, which forced the drill to be extended as officers sought an adult female suspect. In April of 2024, when The Center for Counseling & Consultation reported a man with a gun had been seen on the premises (information that turned out to be incorrect), The Center was evacuated and nearby Lincoln Elementary School was on lockdown.
Under the new safety protocol, these situations would have called for the building to observe “Hold!” or perhaps “Secure!” procedures. If the school announces “Secure!” status, teachers will make sure everyone is indoors and they’ll lock the outside doors. Teachers will take attendance and be on high alert; meanwhile, students can continue to do business as usual. That is the kind of action that has previously been called a lockdown.
The biggest disruption to routine would be that students at the high school couldn’t get outside to walk to or from the Panther Activity Center or leave the grounds.
Let us hope we never again hear that a school is in “Lockdown!” mode, because the new definition is exactly what comes to mind when we hear the term. It’s the kind of emergency that might mean there’s an active shooter in or outside of the school. Students will get into classrooms if possible while teachers lock the classroom doors, turn out the lights, maintain silence and move out of sight from windows.
Although there is no state mandate for classroom doors with locks, many of USD 428’s classroom doors can be locked from the inside. Assistant Superintendent John Popp said that in recent training provided by the organization that recommended some of the safety protocols, he learned no school shooter has ever broken through a locked door.
“I believe (the trainers) were referencing a study from the Sandy Hook Commission which was released in 2015,” Popp said. “They stated that there has never been an active shooter who breached a classroom door.”
That appears to remain true even after the incident in Uvalde, Texas, where the shooter broke through a door that already had a broken lock.
Think about it. As far as we know, to date, not a single school shooter has breached a locked classroom door. Usually, the shooter is in a hurry and likely to walk past a door that is locked. While there’s no guarantee that won’t change in the future, being out of sight behind a locked door is the best line of defense.
Popp added, “The U.S. Department of Justice studied active shooter events and found that 70% of shooter events are over in 5 minutes, and 90% are over in 10 minutes. This is why they say that one of the best things you can do is get students behind a locked classroom door.”
There are also procedures if students need to evacuate the building or if they need to take shelter.
As the new school year gets underway, vigilant adults are doing all they can to keep our kids safe.
