Let’s face reality: School shootings are a reality in this day and age that weren’t 25 years ago. San Luis Obispo High School has tried combating this reality, but are the procedures really working?

  Four weeks ago, SLOHS administration held an unannounced lockdown drill.

  “The lockdown drill was really unprofessional. Some teachers didn’t seem to take it seriously, the students definitely didn’t, and some classes didn’t even get up and do anything,” said freshman Anthony Meinhold.

  This is probably the most realistic of all the drills we need. Like, do you hear of a school combusting into flames in a movie that isn’t Heathers? Is the earth going to open up and consume SLOHS? No. Out of all the drills, this is the most crucial. 

  Besides, don’t pretend like no one can see into the portables or the math building. We can see through the shades in the math building, as I learned with my geometry class. I had to look and see if my teacher was in, since the lights were on but the door was locked. I could make out the books on top of the desks and his computer and rubber elephant he keeps on his desk. 

  With all the windows in the math building, anyone can pretty much just stare at all the students if they want to. They stare back in return when you walk through the hall to go to the bathroom, which is kind of creepy. The windows pose a threat to the safety of students in an emergency. The drop from the window to the ground outside the building is rather steep. If we had to break through the window, some people like me still wouldn’t jump.

  Another issue is portable classrooms near an entrance into school. 

  When I walk on the pothole-filled dirt road by the softball field when I need to jog down to first period geometry, I can glance inside the portables and make out whatever’s in there. When I stop and squint, I swear I can make out posters in there. 

  If administration really wants a safe campus, talk to students about bullying and how it can evolve into tragedies like this. 

  Most of the school shootings are carried out by students or alumni that suffered with depression and/or other mental disorders due to bullying. The most famous examples are Nikolas Cruz, perpetrator of the Parkland shooting in 2018, and the two perpetrators of the Columbine shooting in 1999.

  It’s unrealistic to say that bullying is going to stop if adults feed us the same information we’ve been getting for years. What we can do about bullying is spread awareness about its effects and how to reach out to people. 

  Yeah, it is depressing. It’s scary to think it could happen here. Our actions can help stop the mayhem, but we’re not all at fault for this. Laws are also responsible for making guns more accessible.

  Making guns more restrictive would help. Stricter gun laws, red flag laws, universal background checks and outlawing assault rifles with huge magazines can prevent some shootings. We need to be proactive citizens, whether we’re of voting age or not.

We should make an effort to learn from past cases so it doesn’t happen to our school. We’ve made our protocol based off of other schools’ misfortunes, as well as common sense. However, in a real crisis, people may forget.

  While having a plan is good, we can’t entirely depend on it when a shooter is active. Recognizing problems like bullying and strange or suspicious behavior are necessary. Ditto for appropriate gun legislation. They are all crucial to our safety at SLOHS. So too are lockdown drills that all staff and students take seriously.