It’s a parent’s nightmare – the school lockdown.

Students are locked inside their classrooms and told to move away from the windows. Some even hunker down. The lights are turned out and no one speaks.

Last week Ringgold High School and neighboring Ringgold Middle School went into lockdown mode based on an alleged threat of violence from one RHS student against another.

“When a good lockdown occurs, you can walk through a building and it looks abandoned,” said Sharon Vaughn, Ringgold High School principal. “You see nothing, hear nothing.”

And while these practices effectively keep potential predators and threats in the dark, it also makes it difficult to communicate with parents and let them know that their children are OK.

The “no one comes in, no one goes out” rule cuts family members off from one another.

But Damon Raines, Catoosa County Public Schools director of operations, wants to reassure parents.

“In a lockdown situation, children are in the safest place possible,” he said. “Parents have to trust the building administrators.”

As for how parents can keep abreast of a lockdown situation, Raines explained that from the second a school goes into lockdown, administrators are in contact with the Catoosa Schools central office. It’s the communications specialist and others in that office who facilitate getting information out to the community.

Staying prepared

Seven years ago the Catoosa school system ran an emergency disaster drill at Ringgold Elementary School in cooperation with other Catoosa emergency response agencies. This was long before such drills became required by by the Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA).

Soon after, all the schools in the system started developing their Safety Security Plans.

These documents are based on safety protocols provided by GEMA, which are then tailored specifically to each school’s needs. They provide a plan of action for school administrators in the event of severe weather, fire, a missing student, crime activity in the school area, etc.

The plans were first certified by GEMA four years ago and are recertified every four years, most recently on July 1.

They are about 170 pages each, and it’s the goal of all faculty and staff to have them memorized.

“Every time we’ve had a visit by a GEMA representative, they’ve been impressed by the knowledge of our administrators,” Raines said.

He explained that the representative gives administrators scenarios to test their understanding of the protocols and procedures.

Raines also meets with each school’s safety coordinators, who are often assistant principals, about four times a year.

The schools also run monthly fire drills, twice yearly lockdown and shelter drills, and twice yearly severe weather drills on state-mandated dates.

Of course, there is no limit to the number and type of drills a school may run. For example, Ringgold High School ran at least seven lockdown/shelter drills last year due to the problems presented by construction and increased student enrollment.

“The reason we drill is to come up with better ways to do what we’re doing,” Raines said. “If parents knew how much time we spend on safety protocols, they’d feel safer.”

Last week’s lockdown

But all the preparation in the world still leaves room for a few surprises.

When Ringgold High School ran their lockdown drills last year, students were already in classrooms.

However, when the school went into lockdown last Wednesday at 7:58 a.m., many kids were just showing up to school.

There were also many kids in the hallways that followed the hard and fast lockdown rule – go into the nearest door you see. And once that door is locked, it doesn’t open.

Teachers had other teachers’ students, but they contacted the office after doors locked to let administrators know which students were accounted for.

However, there were other students in the parking lot and many rooms were overcrowded.

The school resource officer asked Vaughn to initiate last week’s lockdown when a student reported a potential fight between two other students.

According to Catoosa Sheriff Phil Summers: On Tuesday, Aug. 21, Shaun D. Humphries, 18, had an argument with his girlfriend over one of her ex-boyfriends. Humphries made threats to the ex-boyfriend, enough to make his girlfriend call her ex and warn him not to come to school the next day.

Summers blamed the escalation of the story on the rumor mill, saying it was “typically blown out of proportion.”

Under normal circumstances, explained Vaughn, the school resource officer would get word of a threat and pull the concerned students out of class to investigate the situation and potential threat. However, because Humphries is a fifth-year senior and only on campus for two periods a day, the school called the sheriff’s office to visit Humphries’s home to investigate.

Until the students concerned had been located, the school locked down. Nearby Ringgold Middle School was also put on lockdown through the communication of both schools’ safety resource officers, and schools like Tiger Creek and Ringgold Elementary were put on alert.

“We didn’t have any idea if it was true,” Vaughn said of the threat. “We had to check it out. If you don’t have all the information, then you’re operating in the dark with people’s lives.”

After the lockdown at Ringgold High, Raines and the school administrators sat down to discuss what they could have done better.

From that discussion has come an amendment to their safety security plan. Buses will now transport any students that come to school after a lockdown has started to a safe area away from the school.

Ringgold’s lockdown ended approximately an hour after it started.

Humphries was charged with making terroristic threats, and the sheriff said he already made his $5,000 bond. Humphries has also been suspended from school and will face a disciplinary tribunal.

“People think we go overboard in safety, but that’s what we will always do,” Vaughn said. “At 7:58 that morning, we were the safest school around.”

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