Begin chaos. It might not have been a big deal if the school handled it differently.
It all started in English class today, about 10 AM. I looked out the door window and saw two police officers and a teacher walk into the drafting lab across the hall and start yelling something I couldn't hear. I thought little of it and moved on. Then the principal comes on the intercom and says there is "suspicious activity" or something along the lines of that going on and that we were officially in lockdown. Staff members in every hallway and every door locked except the front one. All inbound and outbound activity is watched. Towards the end of class and in my half-hour study hall, half a dozen or so people are called to leave the school every 10 minutes or so.
Fast forward to lunch and now people are leaving in the dozens every couple minutes. This mass exodus is emptying the school quickly, and the lockdown is still active. To leave the cafeteria before the bell you have to tell them you were called and hope they believe you, same for the main door. Panicking parents are outside yelling at each other and demanding their children be released. Lunch is over, move on to health class. I am called down to leave along with other people numbering possibly above 50 in one round. I go to the attendance office and see a pair of folding tables with 4 people sitting there and papers strewn about, all related to people leaving. I sit in there for an hour and a half, and the inefficiency of this process is irritating. I'm finally called and told I could leave and went home, and that's the present. Most of our off-duty police officers were dispatched to the school, most likely to prevent the parents from doing something stupid. The administrators refused to provide any real description of what was happening until the end, which is why people were pouring out of the school. There'd be nearly nobody left by the time school ended. The only thing worse than them taking this so seriously is that they have to take it so seriously.
