I am a push in classrooms technology teacher at a school. Last Wednesday afternoon our school went on a Secure (secure all outside doors, no one in, no one out, business as usual inside) at the same time a fire drill was to occur, which was a little confusing. Then a administrator walked down the hall and closed every classroom door. I got concerned that I missed something important. I was worried to leave the room I was in to travel to my next class. Then about 15 minutes before dismissal an announcement was made for teacher's to check thier email. The email was a district message stating that we went into Secure because of activity in the neighborhood and students were released to parents. EVERY teacher thought the Secure was over but we were also confused and concerned. The big question why ask us to read an email that didn't appear to be urgent and didn't have clear expectations. Then 5 minutes before dismissal we got another announcement that the Secure was not over and check your email. I read that stupid email 5 times for no reason other than anxious I missed something. I went to my office to shut down for the day and prep for the next day. My mind wondering if I should not do this, head to the front office, or go find my team to hide out. Next another teacher is telling/asking/demanding staff with no classes to go to the office. I see 5th-6th grade are inside from the outside cottages. Several teachers asking for younger siblings to come to the gym for "family reunification." I was asked to go outside to facilitate student-parent reunification but back away because I didn't want to be in the middle of a crowd. I try to help inside but for the next hour literally every minute the reunification plan changes. I begin to feel out of control, overwhelmed, worried, frustrated and irritated. There was misinformation, no communication, unclear expectations, and changing directions. As the event is winding down I ask to leave because I have a therapy appointment. I thought I had calmed down and had a decent session processing the day. After that my addrenaline must have gone down and I went into a full nervous breakdown for the rest of the night and the next day at work. I noticed every dropped water bottle, door slam, kid yell, and the worst the school bell ringing. I worked with every coping/calming trick I know. I am so sick and tired of being triggered and not knowing when I will be triggered. I am so careful to avoid any potential triggers. I am tired of being overwhelmed. I also need to decide to share or not share all this with my administrators. Sorry for the rant!
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deezlife
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I'm so sorry all this happened. It's such a frightening time as it is and to have such a chaotic approach from your leadership is certainly very concerning.
I take it you don't have a review after these incidents? I would have hoped you had some sort of meeting after to discuss what went wrong and right during the lock down.
Is there any way you can meet with your peers and talk about how to present this to administration?
I'm so glad you had therapy right away but I would think this needs more time to process
Thank you for you support. It's definatly is taking a long time to process. There is usually no review. Although tomorrow we have a staff meeting and I am sure this will come up. Just don't know if I want to be apart of this conversation. I just don't think I can handle it. I have been putting off talking to my admin about this but feel I have to.
A major benefit of doing drills, is reviewing where they worked well and what changes can be made to make them work even better. I can well understand your reluctance to be directly involved in a staff meeting discussion about your observations, but please do what you can in the background to ensure that the shortcomings you've observed are acknowledged and addressed. You could potentially save or at least reduce the risk of your school staff and students from experiencing trauma or worse.
I hope the meeting goes well today. I understand that this may be very difficult for you. Follow your gut instinct, you know how much you can handle. Do what you need to do to get yourself safely through this meeting
I work in education too. Not being informed really sucks! We had a tornado warning where students were on hands and knees for a whole hour, I had to help them be distracted from thinking they were going to die. Teachers were even instructed on knees near walls for a while. They didn’t tell us until later that there was a tornado a block from us.
I am so sorry. It's hard when this is at least the third incident this year that was mishandled. There was no after meeting. It was like it it didn't exsist.
I found pt recently one of my old positions that mishandled me getting injured in a class that was not supported well enough, that a student left campus and staff weeent even aware until about 24 hours later. They assumed he got a ride home and told the bus driver. The student was found a couple hours later at a school a mile away. He is non verbal and asd. I reported to the union that this is the case and that I’m still injured and year later. I don’t know how schools get away with mishandling things that can be dangerous. I decided to be the squeaky wheel several times now.
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