Safety and Security Protocol: Lockdown

October 5th, 2022 /
Spencer Tuinei /
News, Safety and Security Campaign, Student Services

Welcome back to our Safety and Security Campaign. If you’re unfamiliar with the Campaign, or what I Love you Guys Means then please check out the previous articles and videos and come back soon.

To recap, we’re looking at the “I Love U Guys” standard response protocols, offering insights on how school staff is continuously preparing for critical response, and sharing information on how you and your students can better prepare for the unexpected. You can find the overview article explaining what I Love U Guys is in more detail here.

This week we’re covering “Lockdown.” Rather than go to a district storyteller, we want to dive into the pertinent information to prepare you in case of a lockdown emergency.

Lockdown is ordered when there is a threat or hazard inside the school building. From parental custody disputes to intruders to an active assailant, Lockdown uses classroom and school security actions to protect students and staff from the threat.

Here’s a few examples of when you might see Lockdown:

Dangerous animal within school building
Intruder
Angry or violent parent or student
Report of a weapon
Active assailant

The public address that staff or students will call for a Lockdown is:

“Lockdown! Locks, Lights, Out of Sight!” and is repeated twice each time the public address is performed.

The Lockdown protocol demands that all staff and students:

Lock individual classroom doors, offices and other securable areas
Move occupants out of line of sight of corridor windows
Turn off lights to make the room seem unoccupied
Ask occupants to maintain silence
Dim and silence cell phones
If outside of a room, hide, run, and evacuate

There is no call to action to lock the building’s exterior access points. Instead, the protocol advises leaving the perimeter as is. The reasoning is simple – sending staff to lock outside doors exposes them to unnecessary risk and inhibits first responders’ entry into the building.

If the location of the threat is apparent and people do not have the option to get behind a door, it is appropriate to self-evacuate away from the hazard.

All five I Love U Guys protocols covered throughout September are regularly drilled in our schools. We’ll have an article examining how our district is improving drill practices in our district.

We also understand that conversations about emergencies can be frightening and possibly traumatic for children. While these conversations and drills must occur, we want to assure families that we strictly adhere to state laws and best practices to make the experience as comfortable for students as possible by following state expectations for school safety and drills– which we’ll cover in an upcoming article.

For families who’d like to learn more, download our Emergency Reference Checklist and Tips, or browse the I Love U Guys website for more information.

Keep in mind that this is a broad overview of the protocol– more comprehensive training and training documents are available for staff members. Still, the goal is to put everyone on the same page to speak the same, simplified language in an emergency.

Keep an eye out for our Safety and Survey, in which we want to hear your Safety and Security interests and concerns.

Next month, we’ll discuss:

Improvements to each school’s physical design and security measures to fortify our schools
Developments that create more varied emergency training and drills
The utilizations of safety and security councils to speak to each school’s safety and security needs.
Thanks for checking in, stay tuned for more safety and security information, and stay safe.