On Oct. 9, the high school went into a lockdown after school hours during a C-Team volleyball game, various sports practices, and parent-teacher conferences. As staff and faculty directed students, teachers, and parents through a horror of unanswered questions and interrupted activities, a calm facade of each administrator kept order on campus.
Principal Chad Nulik said the school received a phone call informing them of a possible threat, which prompted the school to implement a lock-in-place procedure.
“I just want to keep people safe. In all honesty, it’s about safety,” Nulik said. Just outside Willis Gym, the football team was practicing, and junior Orlando Gonzalez said that about 30 minutes into practice, an announcement came through the intercom that a lockdown had been put into place; however, nobody was able to hear it due to the loud music playing. Soon after, head football coach Taylor Counts received a phone call informing him of the situation.
The team rushed to the football locker room in a haze of confusion.
“I was like, this is fake. There’s no way this is real,” Gonzalez said.
Different people cope with highly stressful situations in various ways. While some may be focused and quiet, others may cope with humor and laughter.
“We were all kind of just goofing around and laughing,” Gonzalez said. “I mean, everybody was making jokes about it. Obviously, it’s not funny, but we’re all the way in the back of the school in the locker room, and the officers were back there too, so we felt safe.”
As the football team was settled in their locker room, the C-team volleyball game presented its own story. Freshman Bristol Parks was warming up in Willis Gym for her game as faculty began locking the doors of the school.
“We continued to warm up, and then coach Counts came in and said that we needed to go into a classroom,” Parks said.
As players, spectators, and coaches were filed into classrooms, confusion ran through everyone’s heads, Parks said, due to staff members being unable to disclose details of the events for confidentiality reasons. As threats at school become a more regular event, people must be prepared for all situations.
School administration has procedures set in place for threats in order to be as prepared as possible if a threat presents itself.
“We always look at our procedural stuff, and we just, we look at what best way to take proactive approaches to safety,” Nulik said.
Students and teachers have grown accustomed to practicing for events in which a lockdown has been put in place, and, as a result, real events don’t feel as serious as they once did because of such drastic normalization.
“I mean, in all honesty, it’s sad that we have to worry about this. I want kids to come here to learn and feel like they’re safe, and I want parents to be able to send their kids here and feel that they’re safe,” Nulik said.
After an incident, the administration meets and assesses the situation, discussing how they think everything was dealt with in order to be better prepared for a potential future threat.
“I kind of feel like people think it won’t happen to us, so they take it very lightly, but you never know,” said Gonzalez.
