Staff members of an elementary school staged a fictitious gun attack on students during a class trip, telling them it was not a drill as the children cried and hid under tables.
The mock attack Thursday night was intended as a learning experience and lasted five minutes during the weeklong trip to a state park, said Scales Elementary School Assistant Principal Don Bartch, who led the trip.
"We got together and discussed what we would have done in a real situation," he said.
But parents of the sixth-grade students were outraged.
"The children were in that room in the dark, begging for their lives, because they thought there was someone with a gun after them," said Brandy Cole, whose son went on the trip.
Some parents said they were upset by the staff's poor judgment in light of the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech that left 33 students and professors dead, including the gunman.
During the last night of the trip, staff members convinced the 69 students that there was a gunman on the loose. They were told to lie on the floor or hide underneath tables and stay quiet. A teacher, disguised in a hooded sweat shirt, even pulled on a locked door.
After the lights went out, about 20 kids started to cry, 11-year-old Shay Naylor said.
"I was like, 'Oh My God,' " she said. "At first I thought I was going to die. We flipped out."
Principal Catherine Stephens declined to say whether the staff members involved would face disciplinary action, but said the situation "involved poor judgment."
Poor judgment? You don't say? How do things like this happen. It sounds like there were several teachers involved, how come not one of them thought, "hey, maybe this isn't such a great idea, we're going to scare these kids shitless."
Just proves one of my greatest theories: Every bad idea gets its start with someone saying "that's a really good idea."
9 comments:
I would sue the school system. That behavior is inexcusable by the teachers involved, and I guarantee that long term damage has been done to those poor innocent children. It leaves me mortified, having previously taught elementary school. I cannot fathom scaring them senseless as some kind of drill. I don't believe in running around and suing for every thing that comes along, but these children are going to have therapy bills that far exceed what their insurace will pay...if they have insurance at all. Pitiful! I think all of those teachers should be dismissed immediately, and have their teaching certificates taken away from them permanently.
As a retired teacher, I totally agree with Karen. Intentionally scaring children into thinking they are going to die is NEVER educational! Those teachers should never be allowed to "teach" again.
This is one of the most ridiculous things I've heard in awhile! It is horrible to think adults are that retarded that they can't see the issues with purposely putting kids thru something like that? I think of my own kids and can only imagine how they would feel and to see them terrified and crying .... it's bad enough these days knowing your sending them off to school where God knows what can or will happen without a bunch of idiot teachers traumatizing them just for kicks. There should certainly be some sort of reprimand for the actions although the damage has already been done.
I want to remind parents out there that we are living in a different world. You probably don't hear about half of the things that happen at your child's school and there's a reason for that. I am a teacher in Saint Lucie County, Florida. Last year I worked at a school where a parent threatened to come to our school with a gun, and the police actually caught him on his way to the school armed witha a gun, and we can obviously guess he was going to make good on his threat. The public never learned of theat incident. When the staff was told the following day, many of us were outraged. Think about it. Schools are not unfallible places. The school I worked at had 1500 students and about 8 separate buildings. This means there is movement outside the buildings constantly, as staff members, we didn't all know each other. There were gates that were easily penetratable from the outside. I went home the night after I found this news out and I was horrified. We of course were instructed not to talk to anyone about this, especially the students, but it made me really worry about them. These students, little babies, first graders, were in my care, and something like this could happen. Anyone who has dealt with children in mass quantities will tell you hysteria..., I thought about what I could do with them if it happened again. How many could I fit into the bathroom? How many could hide behind my bookshelves? How many could I pop through the small window I had? I take my job seriously and love all of my students. The thought of something bad happening to them because they are not prepared for something we all know is just as much of a threat as a kiddnapping terrifies me. We tell them what to do in that instance and we practice it. Maybe these teachers didn't do this in the best of ways, but I believe their hearts were in the right place. It should have been talked about ahead of time and it should have taken place at the school.
Please remember, that those of us who go into teaching, do it because we enjoy children. We love our jobs. We certainl;y don't get paid the most, or recieve commendations for all of the work we do. If anything, a stellar teacher can be brought down by one wrong decision (or one viewed as wrong) when they were doing what they thought was best. Take the time to go to your kids classroom, meet their teachers, offer to help out for a day, and you will not believe how different your attitude towards them will be. And believe it or not, they always need your help!
Just caring about your kids!
Nobody said that these teachers didn't have their hearts in the right place. The problem was they had their heads up their asses. Anyone who beleives making 11 year old child beleive that they are going to die is a good idea should not be allowed to teach children, regardless of their intentions.
I am also a teacher and they are out of their f.....g minds. What would their response be if someone pretended to sneak into their homes at night with a gun? They should lose their certificates. Not fit enough to teach my dog let alone the children.
Karen Ohio
Sick child molesters! The teachers got a sexual high from scaring kids. Its sadism and should be recognized as that. No doubt the teacher laughed amoungst each other about how scared the kids were after it was all over. Now the pervert teachers should be scared. If I ever had a teacher do that to me, I would hire a lawyer and sue them for MENTAL ANGUISH! Its legal and worth $500,000.
I do not understand how people can justify what they did. Me as a parent can only hope that this never happens in our school but I will be learly from now on and demand that I know what they are to do on field trips in the future because of what these teachers did. It only takes one to ruin it for everybody. As others have said if I were a lawyer I would offer my services to sue so that nobody else could do this type of damage to 11-12 year olds again. I hope that enough parents voices will be heard so the school system will listen and do the right thing.
While I think suggesting permanent psychological damage from this event is taking it a little too far I am not condoning what the teachers did. Not in the least. I always advocate for the use of rational thought and there's no way any sensible person could have construed this as appropriate, or a good idea.
In fact, in doing further research on this story I am quite certain that the teachers meant it as a prank, a ghost story. Apparently it was tradition on this trip to tell ghost stories, and the teachers probably thought this was a great way to get the kids truly scared.
It was only after they saw the horror of what they had reaped that they concocted the "drill" alibi.
While I never recommend firing people in cases like Imus, these people should not be around students anymore. If the union won't allow for their dismissal, then the union leaders should be castigated as well.
I've appreciated this lively discussion especially since many of the posters on this thread are anonymous to me.
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