New House Commission to study effects of lockdown drills and swatting events
“As parents, we know these lockdowns are having an impact on our students’ mental health. With this commission, we will finally get our arms around what’s going on and what we can be doing better.”
“The commission has the following purpose: To determine what changes, if any, need to be made to Rhode Island General Law 16:21:4 in light of the national landscape of school shootings as well as the recent swatting events that affected many districts in our state,” said Rhode Island State Representative Jennifer Boylan (Democrat, District 66, Barrington, East Providence). Boylan was speaking at the first meeting of the House Special Legislative Study Commission to Evaluate and Provide Recommendations on Mandated Safety Protocols for Rhode Island Schools, a mouthful of a name and based on a resolution sponsored by Representative Boylan.
“As parents, we know these lockdowns are having an impact on our students’ mental health,” said Representative Boylan. “With this commission, we will finally get our arms around what’s going on and what we can be doing better.”
The study, noted Representative Boylan, shall include, but not be limited to, the evaluation of several items:
Should the number of drills dictated in Rhode Island General Law 16:21:4 be changed? And if so, what should it be changed to?
Should lockdown drills during school hours include simulations that mimic an actual incident?
Should parents have advanced notice of lockdown drills? “Currently, as far as I'm aware, there's no requirement for a notice of the exact time and date of a lockdown drill,” noted Representative Boylan.
Should lockdown drills be announced to students and educators before their start?
Should schools create developmentally appropriate lockdown drill content with the involvement of school personnel, including school-based mental health professionals?
Should schools couple drills, as well as lockdown events, with a trauma-informed approach to address students' wellbeing both during the drills and over a sustained period? And if so, how can that approach be implemented during actual lockdown events? “And by that, I mean an actual lockdown, not a drill,” noted Representative Boylan.
What enforcements are necessary so that personnel do not ignore the lockdown during actual lockdown events?
Should an evacuation option be available to students?
Should the frequency of mandatory emergency egress drills, which are the fire drills, be changed from once a month to some reduced number of drills per academic school year? “Anecdotal information I've heard is that the alarms going off can be traumatizing to certain populations of students during these drills,” said Representative Boylan.
Are there any additional steps that school administrators can take to minimize trauma around the drills as well as lockdown events?
Representative Boylan noted “that the focus of this commission is rather narrow. It does not address the broader issue of all the things under school security.” The commission is more narrowly focused on Rhode Island General Law 16:21:4, Fire, evacuation, and lockdown drills required, and how the drills are conducted. To this Representative Boylan has added the topic of “swatting events” that she sees as fundamentally related.
After the meeting, I asked Representative Boylan about swatting events.
“Swatting events are false threats of an active shooter. Someone calls the police and says, ‘I'm in the high school and the high school's being shot up. Please help me,’” said Representative Boylan. “That immediately puts the school into lockdown and causes the police to respond with extreme urgency. They have no choice. They have to assume it's an attack.
“14 school districts in Rhode Island were affected by a swatting event earlier this year, and they [appeared to be] coordinated. They were happening all over the state. The police come in, guns drawn, and everyone's locked down. Everyone's terrified. 20 minutes later, the police have swept the building and there's no threat. Everyone's safe. It was not real.
“Everyone is told to go back to school, take the tests, and keep going about their business. For many people - students and staff - it was impossible to do that. There don't seem to be any protocols for swatting events. It's sort of a new-ish phenomenon. It's not the same as when I was a kid, someone would pull the fire alarm. Ha ha, everyone gets to go outside. It is terrorism. It's terrifying. And they're not being addressed in a trauma-informed way. And that's the reason to sort of loop that in with these other issues.”
One member of the Commission is 16-year-old Millie Piper, a junior in high school at Mount Hope High School in Bristol. Piper has been charged with the large task of “representing all Rhode Island students.”
“I've been doing lockdown drills, evacuation drills, and fire drills since I was in kindergarten,” said Piper. “It's always been the norm for me. As someone else said, we are the lockdown generation. It's always been the norm for me, but it’s always a concern.”
After the hearing, I asked Piper to elaborate on her experiences as part of the "lockdown generation."
"I never felt any fear about lockdowns because it was such a normal thing to me," said Piper. "From the time I was five, we were told, 'Here's the part of the classroom you go into, you put your hands in your laps and you stay quiet. People are going to come around. It's dark in here and the door's locked, but you're with all your friends.'
“I was never scared growing up during lockdown drills. But as I got older, as names like Sandy Hook and Columbine and these famous school names started to become household names, I started to think about the weight behind having a lockdown at age 5, 6, 7, or 8. And as you get older, you start to realize how terrifying it is that you and all of your classmates were practicing hiding from a shooter in kindergarten.
“As I've gotten older, lockdown drills have gotten scarier and scarier. You start to think, 'What if this isn't a drill? What if this is a drill? Are we sitting longer than we usually are? Does my teacher look nervous or am I just overthinking it? It becomes a real threat rather than just doing what your teacher tells you to do.”
"And are you listening for gunshots and stuff?" I asked. “Is that a part of it?”
"Honestly," said Piper, "I feel like it might just be growing up in my generation, but no matter where I am in a public place - at the mall, at school, anywhere, really -I'm listening for any loud sound because it's a very real thing to be able to happen nowadays. It's terrifying that my generation has to go through this every single year. I know that for many students, how scary it is is starting to resonate."
In addition to Millie Piper, the Commission has the following appointees:
Representative Joseph McNamara (Democrat, District 19, Warwick);
Representative Jennifer Stewart (Democrat, District 59, Pawtucket);
Andy Andrade, Rhode Island Department of Education;
Francis J. Flynn, Rhode Island Chapter of the American Federation of Teachers;
Sherrie Monaco, Rhode Island Association of School Psychologists;
Chief Scott Kettelle, Rhode Island Association of Fire Chiefs, Inc.;
Katelyn Medeiros, Esq., Office of the Rhode Island Child Advocate;
Chief Kevin M. Lynch, Rhode Island Police Chiefs’ Association;
Corporal Nicholas Rivello, Rhode Island State Police; and,
Michael Hassell, Rhode Island Association of School Principals.
The Commission’s next meeting will be on Tuesday, October 10 at 4 pm.