Which Tacoma schools are locked down most often, and what’s the effect on the kids?
Huddled on the floor in a darkened classroom at McCarver Elementary School in Tacoma, Rebecca Goodman tried to keep her fourth grade students quiet.
“Think about what would really happen if an intruder was in our school,” Goodman told them. “I want to be very serious.”
The lockdown was only a drill, but McCarver Elementary is one of the schools in Tacoma most likely to experience the real thing.
Located in Central Tacoma, McCarver has had seven lockdowns since 2015, according to data from Tacoma Public Schools.
Of all 155 lockdowns recorded by Tacoma Public Schools since 2015, schools located in South End, Eastside and Central Tacoma are more likely to experience a lockdown than their North and West End counterparts, according to records obtained by The News Tribune. Those districts also are lower-income areas and more racially diverse, according to equity maps.
Based on Tacoma’s neighborhood council map, lockdowns in Tacoma Public Schools have occurred in the following areas:
▪ South End: 42
▪ Central Tacoma: 34
▪ Eastside: 34
▪ South Tacoma: 15
▪ North End: 11
▪ West End: 9
▪ Fircrest: 5
▪ Northeast Tacoma: 3
▪ New Tacoma: 2
While school lockdowns often are associated with active shooters or the threat of one, most lockdowns in Tacoma are triggered by nearby police activity, records show. Only about 10 percent of lockdowns were a result of threats to the school or because of a weapon on campus.
Lockdowns at Tacoma schools also have been triggered by angry parents and raccoons on the playground.
The Tacoma Police Department does not track school lockdowns as a statistic, said TPD officer Wendy Haddow. Tacoma Public Schools only recently started tracking lockdown incidents. Prior to the 2015-16 school year, there was no log of lockdowns, according to the district.
The data
Between September 2015 and January 2020, Tacoma Public Schools recorded 155 lockdowns. Here’s a breakdown by school year:
▪ 2015-16: 33
▪ 2016-17: 21
▪ 2017-18: 49
▪ 2018-19: 31
▪ 2019-20: 20
Comparatively, Spokane Public Schools recorded 23 so far this school year. Both Tacoma and Spokane have roughly the same enrollment at about 30,000 students.
The most common reasons for a lockdown in Tacoma in the past five years were:
▪ Police activity in the area (55)
▪ Reported gunshots/shooting in a nearby neighborhood (23)
▪ Volatile parents/custodial disputes (11)
▪ Suspicious person (9)
▪ Threat against school (9)
Jason Lee Middle School and Lister Elementary had the most lockdowns of all Tacoma schools in the last five years at eight. Mount Tahoma High School, Oakland High School, First Creek Middle School, Bryant Montessori, Mary Lyon Elementary and McCarver Elementary each had seven lockdowns.
Most of Tacoma’s lockdowns occurred in elementary schools. A majority of them — 104 out of 155 — also were modified lockdowns, while 14 were described as full lockdowns. It was not clear whether the remaining 37 were modified or full lockdowns, according to TPS data.
In a full lockdown, shades are drawn and lights are off, with students huddled in a corner of the room, away from the locked door.
In a modified lockdown, classes carry on as usual, with doors locked.
Anyone has the ability to instigate a lockdown, whether that’s a bus driver, teacher or the police department, said Mike Rupert, safety and security director for TPS.
For student safety, “we don’t ask questions, we lock it down,” said Rupert, who spent 26 years in the State Patrol.
Each school should have a designated person to document a lockdown should one occur, although it is possible staff could forget to record a lockdown. The district also notifies parents as soon as possible, although sometimes students beat them to it by texting their parents during a lockdown. Parents can also think a school went into lockdown when it didn’t, Rupert said.
“In this school district we take the time to explain what we’re doing and why we’re doing it,” said Rupert.
Impacts to students
Some feel that lockdowns, whether real or just a drill, have the potential to impact the mental health of students.
Sara Dannen, a Tacoma parent, said a lockdown at Mason Middle School due to a shooting threat on a bathroom wall prompted her daughter to not want to go to school.
“I have seen heightened anxiety with these kids manifested in thoughts that I would never have had in high school,” Dannen told The News Tribune.
There’s a level of anxiety in any lockdown situation, said Nicole Ross, a child and family therapist with Navos, a mental health provider.
“There’s a very real worry that I think kids are growing up with — that anyone can come to the school with a gun and hurt them,” Ross said.
Dannen said she understands the importance of lockdown drills. She also doesn’t want her daughter to be thinking about which one of her teachers would protect her in the event of a school shooting.
“You feel like you’re completely out of control and you can’t protect your kids,” she said.
Tacoma parent Holly Stewart told Tacoma Public Schools’ Board of Directors in September that her child said he doesn’t feel safe during lockdown drills.
“As a parent volunteer I’ve seen firsthand lockdown drills with preschoolers and kindergarteners cowering in dark corners, and I know that it does not help them to engage in school and feel like this is a welcoming space for them,” she said.
Since many lockdowns are tied with police activity, the district can’t do much to prevent them from happening in certain areas or at all, said district spokesman Dan Voelpel.
“We can’t control what goes on in the community,” Voelpel said.
The district is aware of potential impacts lockdowns can have on students. In addition to loss of instructional time, lockdowns can “produce anxiety, stress, and traumatic symptoms in some students or staff,” according to the National Association of School Psychologists.
Kids can be affected differently, such as students with disabilities or who have experienced past traumas.
“For one kid, the lockdown could be something that puts them over the edge. For another, they’re not worried at all,” Ross said.
At McCarver, second grader Anneliese Hill said the lockdown drill was scary.
“If you didn’t do a lockdown, you could get seriously hurt,” she said.
Fourth grader Ezra Sokimi said he felt safe during the drill.
“I know our school has a good system for keeping people out,” he said.
State law requires schools to perform at least one safety-related lockdown per month. That could range from a lockdown drill, a fire drill, earthquake drill or a shelter in place drill. In Tacoma, schools conduct a supervised lockdown drill once per year. At a supervised drill, Tacoma police are there to assess how the school did and what staff could do better.
Some schools conduct active shooter drills with simulated gunfire. They’ve drawn controversy over their potential harm to students. Those types of drills don’t — and won’t — happen in Tacoma schools, Rupert said.
Teachers at McCarver hope that practicing lockdown drills will make students feel better prepared in the event of a real lockdown.
“I think they should know the things that could happen,” said fifth grade teacher Brooke Gregory.
“They do take it seriously. They know that this is practice just in case something awful happens,” said second grade teacher Cely Rohr. “We never had to do this when we were kids, so it makes me think about how the world has changed and how we have to prepare for this kind of stuff now.”
A previous version of this stoyr incorrectly labeled the number of South End and South Tacoma school lockdowns in the last five years. South End had 42 lockdowns, while South Tacoma had 15 lockdowns.
This story was originally published February 6, 2020 at 5:35 AM.
