Letter: Don’t subject our students to this traumatic drill

As a community member and parent of young daughters, I want to vocalize my deep concern for an active-shooter simulation the high school is holding this month.

On Thursday, April 12, while students are in school, there will be a violent “role-playing scenario” that will include simulated gunfire and an active response from all emergency personnel.

The simulation is intended to be psychologically stressful to test the staff and emergency response. Yet it feels wrong to involve children in such a stressful exercise.

I don’t mean to stand in the way of preparation. Fire and tornado drills are done regularly to ready the students for emergency situations.

However, these drills don’t involve pumping the school with smoke and shutting off electricity. It makes sense to practice safety precautions with the students, but simulated gunfire is taking safety to an unsafe level!

We don’t show R-rated movies in school so why would we subject children to a R-rated experience?

I was a student at Hudson High School when Columbine happened. It was horrifying and tragic.

In the weeks and months that followed, my school had numerous bomb scares and threats of violence.

Our school even went into lockdown with tables barricading the classroom doors when one student brought a gun to school.

I remember sitting in English class with the lights off, hiding from the open windows, praying in a circle of classmates.

As a teenager, the experience was terrifying and exhausting. Now as a parent, I look back on that day with an even deeper sense of how disturbing that incident was.

If this dramatic simulation is necessary to fully prepare the staff and emergency responders, then please do it on a weekend. Spare the kids this simulated violence.

Tags: opinion, letters, k12