Just Another Day

"Mister Caven, are you with students right now?"
When that call came over my walkie-talkie, I knew there would be trouble for someone. More often than not, this is how I get requests from someone, a staff member who is not available to step out from whatever task they are performing to deal with a mischievous or recalcitrant student who needs redirection to or from wherever they shouldn't be to wherever they should be. On rare occasions, it is a question that can only be answered by me: the tech guy, the playground guy, the guy who sees the school from sunup to sundown. In general, these are not happy calls.
But I take them, because it's my job.
At the moment this particular call came last week, I was with students. A room full of them, and we had just begun diving into that day's computer lesson. The call from the office repeated on the radio, and sensing the urgency in our admin assistant's voice, I stepped into the hall to answer. "Yes, I am with students -" I started but the response came back abruptly. "I'm sending someone over to cover your class."
When I looked up, there she was. Our Unconditional Education coach was ready to leap into the fray as I heard the word "lockdown" for the first time that day. I had heard it before, mostly in the context of drills or discussion of proper protocol, but I had also been part of a few real life versions of those best laid plans. Which is why I left the class of fourth and fifth graders in the capable hands of my colleague and started down the hall, sticking my head into classrooms and discretely announcing to teachers that "Horace Mann is in the building." A few were slow on the uptake, but once the flash of recognition came across their faces, I closed the door behind me, locking it as I went. After all eleven classrooms had been notified, I was gratified to see that staff members had contacted our coach and had that class return to their classroom while children taking lazy morning bathroom breaks were hurried back to their shelter in this storm.
Then, for thirty anxious minutes, I paced the hallway downstairs, ready to turn back any loud protestations of "but I gotta use it!" If they were going to go, they were going escorted and hurried back. Quietly.
We were on lockdown.
During one of those quiet, tense moments, I passed an empty classroom with a view of the street outside. Four police cars and a SWAT van sat in the intersection in front of our school. I texted my wife. To let her know. To share my experience with someone. And I tried not to think about all the ways that the day could go so horribly wrong.
Forty minutes later, it was over. Authorities had collected the neighbor with a toy gun who had been threatening anyone who would listen, and the doors were unlocked. Children went outside for recess. It took me another half hour to remember to text my wife back that we were "all clear."
I went back to my students.
Another day in elementary education.