‘I Was Furious’: Teachers Demand Changes After Active Shooter Drill Sparks Panic

CINCINNATI (CBS Local) — Some teachers in Cincinnati are demanding change after an active shooter drill sparked widespread panic at their school.

Students and teachers are supposed to be warned before active-shooter drills begin. But some teachers at the Academy of Multilingual Immersion Studies said they didn’t hear a warning and assumed the worst when the late January drill began, WCPO reported.

“At no time did I hear the word ‘drill,'” said Kristan Sterling, a teacher at the school. “My students — I teach seventh and eighth grade — at that point began physically jumping on top of one another to get themselves into a corner.”

Sterling described the panic that set in her classroom after the principal announced that an intruder was in the building the school was on lockdown.

“I’ve got students packed and ready with scissors — ready to jump, ready to lunge,” she said.

A miscommunication has Cincinnati Public Schools re-thinking how they do active shooter drills. @ambriehlc has more:https://t.co/LU2MY9nv1N

— 91.7 WVXU (@917wvxu) February 8, 2020

Sterling and other angry teachers aired their concerns Friday at the policy committee of the school board meeting.

In another classroom, teacher Dianna Schweitzer hid under a sink with two students.

“My colleague was ready to take out anybody behind the door,” she said. “He was not armed, but he had big, heavy things.”

“I was furious,” Sterling said. “I was furious. What could have happened had we thought this SRO (school resource officer) or our principal or whoever else was checking the halls were a real intruder.”

The district’s general counsel said he will follow up with teachers at the school and work with them to develop potential changes to the active-shooter drill procedures.