“Attention students: we are going into a lockdown; this is not a drill; please report calmly and safely to your advisors. We are going into a lockdown; this is not a drill.” These were the crackly words that greeted the LM student body at 11:31 a.m. on October 3. A feeling of doom struck countless students, with many thinking the worst: there was an active shooter in the building. It wasn’t irrational to think of this possibility, especially from the cryptic message that was given over the loudspeaker. The lack of information and miscommunications would mar the school district’s and high school’s efforts to effectively communicate to students and families while also dampening fear and panic.

The core of the issue at hand lies in the way that pertinent information was distributed and what the district chose to communicate. The loudspeaker announcement was unnecessarily vague—it’s not wonder why so many students’ minds jumped to an active shooter situation. The lockdown announcement wasn’t mishandled in this way at other schools—a Merion Elementary School mom shared on Facebook that their principal, according to her children, announced that “There’s a bad person doing bad things outside of the school, so to be safe we are going to go into lockdown mode along with many other schools in the area.” This approach—making students aware of the key fact that the danger was outside of the school—was more responsible and appropriate and, despite being utilized by Merion Elementary School Principal Dr. Toby Albanese, was not the one that LM’s administration decided to use.

As a result, many students fled the building upon hearing the announcement, which made perfect sense. After all, we’re taught to follow the “Run, Hide, Fight” protocol in the event of a shooting, which, due to the vagueness of the information we were provided, was the assumed reality for many. In this situation, though, fleeing the building was the most dangerous course of action, since the danger in question actually was outside of the school. Had the robbery suspects been closer to LM, students fleeing the threat of the “shooter” could have found themselves in immense danger. The lack of clarity in this situation is to blame: students were completely in the dark about the actual nature of the event. 

The knowledge of whether the danger lies in or outside of the school is absolutely pertinent in informing the actions of students. Today’s climate has led to students having heightened awareness of the dangers now inherent in going to school. We’re in a position as students where it feels safest to jump to the worst-case scenario if we’re not given the information. More than that, a potentially life-or-death situation is inevitably going to place personal safety as a student’s top concern, making them unlikely to follow vague instructions from administration if we feel that there’s a possibility that there may be a safer option. When dealing with young adults, it’s irresponsible to withhold information, because we’re inclined to make our own decisions (regardless of what administration may tell us to do) and will make better ones with all of the information available.
Even worse, parents were also on the receiving end of less information than they should be entitled to. As the minutes ticked by, with no information from teachers or administrators, panic-stricken students called and texted parents to share the news. “We don’t know what’s happening,” from the perspective of a parent, is an undeniably terrifying text to receive, and it wasn’t until around noon that parents and students received more information about the event. By then, widespread panic had ensued, with students crying in advisories, parents stressed and powerless, and everybody wondering why the school district hadn’t just clarified the nature of the incident from the start.

Because of the lack of communication from the outset, the nature of the directions added to the chaos. In lockdown drills, students have never been asked to leave a classroom that they’re in. During the event, students were both informed they were under lockdown and told that they should leave whatever room they were in and head to advisory. This was compounded by the fact that all prior lockdown drills had occurred during an existing class period—at which point nearly everyone, save a few stragglers coming back from the bathroom, was in a secure, locked room. No drills of any sort had ever been practiced in the more disorganized, openly chaotic lunch environment. This type of direction, to the confused student already stressed by the situation, is illogical and contrary to the directions during every lockdown drill. Many Merionite writers and staff, who were in the LGI for an introductory meeting, had to go to the third floor to go to their advisories. Some advisors were absent from school that day, leaving some students panicked after finding their advisory’s doors locked. Any indication that there was no threat in the school would have easily de-escalated the seeming contradiction in instruction.

It is bewildering that the administration couldn’t communicate the situation to students. The administration felt comfortable telling students to leave any room they might be in and head to advisory, so they clearly knew that the threat was not immediate. We know that the LMPD was the ones that ordered the lockdown out of an abundance of precaution, but it was because of the lack of communication that the lockdown as a preventative measure was lost on the student body. The party to blame here is the LM administrative team; while other schools, like Merion, approached the lockdown with more transparency, LM’s administration decided to leave us, the oldest students impacted by the lockdown, in the dark. If another dangerous event were to occur, the trust that our student body previously had in administration will have been long eroded by the abysmal decisions made on October 3. This lesson should be clear: students need to be informed participants in their own safety. Going forward, LM’s administration must prioritize open communication and respect for the student body’s right to know what’s happening around them. The administration owes us clarity and an apology.