It's a very quiet afternoon. This is my second stint at the school, so when I arrived I already knew the players. I was scheduled to cover for the secretary's attendance at disaster training. Although she had already left, she had taken care of the morning attendance and left her e-mail up for the afternoon parent messages. The backup folks had started compiling the bus change slips. This is the school from whence Kyron Hormon disappeared, and no one walks to school, so there is a complicated procedure for noting down changes. Some are called in, some e-mailed. Today, a bunch of girls are going to Brownies instead of catching the usual bus. The yellow slips have been filled out, and I need to check ESIS to find out which class they are in for the last period of the day. A student will come by around 2:30 to deliver the slips to the proper classroom.
Basically, I am only here to answer the phone and monitor the office. This is the day for the school nurse. She has two interns, so my EMT skills are not needed, fortunately. It's a very inconvenient building for dealing with medical emergencies. The tiny nurse's office is down the hall and around the corner. The staff room, with the refrigerator and ice, is the other direction, down the stairs, and through the lunch room. Last time I was here I got a volunteer from the gym to go get ice for me so I wouldn't have to abandon the office (the Big Crime in substitute secretary land.)
The school is on the outskirts of the district, and it takes me close to 40 minutes to drive there, over the river, through Portland's industrial area, past Linnton and Sauvie Island, up the bluff. You come out of the woods into meadows with barns and scattered housing developments, and finally reach the school, two stories and a basement, lots of old wood and windows and box gardens. The office has room for a desk and me, with enough walk-around space for the teachers to reach their mailboxes by the door. My desk faces the door: the computer monitor and the window into the principal's office are to my right and the phone is on my desk to the front left. Behind me are files and the bell system.
The counter to the main hall is a few steps to my left. This is where visitors and late students check in and parents check out the early departures. The counter has a glass window which was closed when I arrived to give the regular secretary a little quiet while she worked. Two volunteers and L are standing by the window when I arrive, so it's very crowded. L used to assist the secretary: last time I was here she kept tabs on me and basically fussed over procedures on my behalf. Today she is working on the bus slips. She is conscientious, but easily flustered. I do appreciate her dedication, though. Soon they leave and I'm on my own. I open the counter window and watch the classes file past to go outside for lunch time recess. Several teachers talk about inside voices and quiet on the stairs.
The principal is also at the training. He is new this year. He'd been gone last time too, so I had already worked with the Person In Charge, one of the teachers. She checks in again and lets me know that she is mainly doing preps this afternoon, so she should be available if I need her. No one thinks I will.
The afternoon chugs along. I finish the small amount of work available to me, send students to the nurse's office for ice, read my e-mail, do my electronic puttering. The student comes by for the slips. A parent comes by to take out two of her children for an appointment. I can't locate the son: he's a 6th grader with variable 7th hour classes, and there is no information for Wednesday in his ESIS record. I am calling around when I hear the beep for an incoming call. I look at the phone monitor: it's 9-1-1. WTF?
I hang up on the teacher, tell the parent that she'll have to wait, and answer the phone. "This is 9-1-1, there is a fugitive in the area, a domestic violence situation, the FBI wants you to go on Lock Out." "Lock out? Not Lock Down?" "Correct."
I realize I have NO IDEA how a Lock Out works, and I call the PIC. She is teaching a class, and needs to find someone to cover. She asks me to make an intercom announcement, but I don't know how to do that either. I am calling the Librarian for that information when 9-1-1 calls again. "I'm sorry to do this to you, but the FBI wants you to go into Lock DOWN." Okay. I call L, and she too needs to find someone to cover. The PIC arrives, and we realize that she's going to have to go from class to class to take care of this. L arrives, and starts fussing over the intercom: she too does not know how it works, and apparently the emergency instructions are outdated. She gives me the principal's cell number while she goes to another phone to call another school for instructions. I catch him en route back from the disaster training workshop, because he has an afterschool meeting with the Site Committee: they are going to be discussing the budget and layoffs.
L returns with phone instructions, but neither of us can make them work. She calls the emergency number for PPS. Parents who have arrived before the lock-down are milling about in the hall. I go outside to check on them, and they ask what is happening. (Hell if I know.) They point to the doors, where other parents are locked out. "They aren't safe, you need to let them in. We know them, we can vouch for them." "Actually, you can't, you have no way of knowing that one of them is not the fugitive." I go down the stairs to let the parents know this is a lockdown, the kids are safe. One tall dark-haired gentleman insists on seeing his son. I say, that cannot happen right now, we are in lockdown. He is banging on the door. L lets him in, and the rest of the parents stream in behind him. Another parent asks permission to go get her son, who is in the car, and bring him back inside while they wait for her daughter to be let out of the locked classroom.
This is not how it's supposed to go, but it's not really my call. I find the emergency instructions at last, and realize there's a good reason we are told to stay away from doors and windows. It's not just about shooters.
A substitute teacher calls: he has no key to lock the classroom. I find the PIC outside the office and let her know. Parents are huddled against the office window, asking how long this is going to last, asking about buses, asking about their kids. Someone says they saw police handcuffing a man. I realize I have no contact info, and I call 9-1-1. They have been trying to reach us: we can let our people go. A uniformed officer appears with the same information. The PIC goes around to the classes with the word, and parents and students begin streaming out. The dark-haired gentleman stops by the door: "You never lock me out again, I complain to him (pointing to the principal's office), you try to lock me out again, I get in, you can't stop me."
Okay.
L shuts the door to vent to me about the lack of instructions, the fact that emergency training is scheduled for next week, the fact that the dark-haired gent is a nut case. I call the principal to let him know all is well. He is 10 minutes away, and soon will be in the midst of debriefing and crowd control.
I go home and post this to Facebook:
The lockdown occurred
While the principal was in
Disaster training.
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