The same day as the tragic Minneapolis shooting, at least one of the schools in the Londonderry School system had its own alert activated, unrelated to the events in Minnesota. Students and staff sheltered in place, but according to a parent who spoke at a recent School Board meeting, neither the police nor the fire department was notified.
No first responders were alerted to the alert. The school principal sent the following message to parents later that day.
Dear Families, I want to follow up on the earlier message regarding the false ALICE alarm that occurred today at the high school. First and foremost, I want to commend our students and staff for their incredible response. Everyone reacted calmly, quickly, and exactly as they were trained to do. Their actions today reflected the strength and preparedness of our school community. We understand that events like this can affect students in different ways, and those reactions may surface not just in the moment, but also in the hours or days that follow. Please know that we are continuing to monitor the wellbeing of all students and staff who were on campus after school today.
Our counselors and leadership team are available and ready to assist anyone who may need to talk or process what happened. We have also learned more about the cause of the alarm. The unexpected plumbing issue has now been fully resolved. We are taking additional steps to ensure that similar incidents do not occur in the future. If your student is feeling unsettled or has questions, we encourage them and/or you to reach out to their House Office or school counselor. Our team is here to support every student and family, and we want to ensure that everyone feels safe and heard. Sincerely, Rick Barnes Principal
A plumbing issue triggered the alert system(?) which is an interesting way to test something that no one appears to have tested before. A test that failed to alert First Responders.
All of that prompted this public comment moment at the School Board Meeting Yesterday. The remarks begin at 4:00 minutes.
They have a system, but it didn’t notify anyone in law enforcement that the school had locked down for an active shooter event (a false alarm no one knew was false at the time). That is not in any way acceptable. If you are going to turn staff and students into sitting ducks and easy targets, at least let the police know, especially when it sounds like they are right across the street from the school.
If you watched the whole comment and response, it gets a little animated, but the guy makes great points, and he’s not blaming anyone specifically. However, it is clear that the system didn’t work, and it needs to be fixed.
I have it on good authority from several people in law enforcement who run these drills that duck and hide is a poor strategy. Poorer still, I’d gather, when no one with guns knows your situation.
Whatever your professional or armchair opinion, the problem needs to be made and kept public, so, as noted in the public comment above, so it gets fixed. If it gets buried in the process or eclipsed by a non-public session, no one will know why it wasn’t fixed the day after the School Board meeting (while wondering why it wasn’t fixed the day of the false alarm and before students came back to class on the next school day).
Yes, someone should investigate why it didn’t work or wasn’t linked, but the primary goal is to correct the problem. On that point, School Board Chair Bob Slater is alleged to have provided an update on Facebook -forwarded to me, I do not have a link.
I don’t have all the answers at this time and the board is continuing to have conversations with staff and police during our meeting I had reached out to the Chief of police in regards to this matter as the board is very concerned and he assured me that the students were safe to be in school as we work through this matter.
As soon as the SB gets all of the information regarding this issue we will update our community and parents. It was a surprise to us all but we did act immediately to make sure we had everything covered.
Act Immediately? The Minneapolis shooting was on August 27th. The Londonderry High School false alarm was on August 27th. There were three school days completed before the board met on 9/2, and the public commenter alerted them to the lack of action and his concern.
I may need to go back and listen to that conversation again, but the only thing I suspect was getting covered was the asses of those responsible. But that’s me. My only other complaint is that the citizens’ repeated praise for the board, district, schools, curricula, and teachers was a bit excessive. What’s that line from Macbeth? The lady doth protest too much, methinks. Or perhaps we should cycle back fifty years to Eddie Haskell from Leave It to Beaver. That looks like the best school board ever, Mrs. Cleaver.
Londonderry is not stellar. Taxpayers are forking over $ 20,000 per student/year for a public school education in Londonderry. An investment that cannot bring half of the student population to grade-level proficiency in Math (44%), with reading proficiency barely over half at 56%. And let’s be honest. The expectations for either subject are not high these days compared to years past, and they can only manage to get half the students to that low bar?
Who knows, that detail might inform the issue with the emergency alert system. Whoever is responsible for making sure that the system works is (perhaps) a Londonderry “graduate,” and they struggle to read the instructions clearly.
And not for nothing, but when I was in elementary school, we did drills for when the Commies dropped nukes on America. We didn’t need counselors for that; we went back to class and got on with our lessons and our lives.
Jeesh.
