what a day...part one.

11:56 a.m...things are winding down at school. wee ooh, wee ooh, wee ooh...lock down at school.
no biggie, my kids are busy in the classroom, i tell them not to worry and to continue with what they are doing. hello....they only have 34 minutes to complete their all about me books.

6:00 p.m...after going to see a friend's new baby, my other two friends and i are talking (they work at my school) and the lock down comes up in conversation.

Friend number one says she almost got killed on the playground today, she had her kids eating lunch outside for the last day of school when a young guy ran through. Friend number one yells, "Excuse me, excuse me...can i help you?" The guy didn't answer. A couple of seconds later, two more guys run through the playground, and she yells the same thing, "Excuse me, can i help you?" one of the guys mumbles something at her, and she proceeds to tell him that he needs to exit the premises. a couple of seconds later, one of our vice principals comes running onto to the playground and the three guys hop the fence when the lock down signal goes off.

Friend number two says that she had been in her classroom, which is a bungalow type portable building with windows near the street, when she heard the lock down signal, she looked out the window, saw teachers scrambling to get their students, the vice principal yelling on his megaphone and grabbing kids off of the playground...and since she had watched a special on t.v. about what to do in a portable if you are in a lock down, she has the kids huddle together in one corner of the room where, hopefully, the bad guys won't see them, and she turns off the lights.

To make this story even better...one more version, as told to friend number two...another teacher was outside with her class watching her kids play in the jumper (a parent from our school rents out jumpers for parties and for the third year running has brought two of them to school on the last day of the year...each class gets ten minutes in the jumper.) anyway...her class is in the jumper when the lock down signal goes off, and she starts yelling for them to get out and run to the building. total craziness, since the kids had to take their shoes off to get in the jumper, things are in a state of chaos...these little second graders do not comprehend that their shoes are not important at this moment in time. from what i hear, they just started grabbing shoes and running for the building.

12:01 p.m...lock down is over, we are all safe to carry on as usual. yes, all of this occurred in a five minute block. from what i've gathered, the three young men had robbed the 7-11 across the street from the school and jumped our school fence to get away. since no one was sure if they were armed, our school was placed in lock down mode.