Are your kids being put on buses and sent to alternate, sometimes undisclosed, locations during school drills?

March 27, 2012

By Michael Snyder
Blacklistednews.com
All
over the United States, school children are being taken out of their
classrooms, put on buses and sent to "alternate locations" during terror
drills. These exercises are often called "evacuation drills" or
"relocation drills" and they are more than a little disturbing.
Sometimes parents are notified in advance where the kids are being taken
and sometimes they are only told that the children are being taken to
an "undisclosed location".

In the years since 9/11 and the Columbine
school shootings, there has been a concerted effort to make school
emergency drills much more "realistic" and much more intense.
Unfortunately,
the fact that many of these drills are deeply traumatizing many
children does not seem to bother too many people. Do we really need to
have "active shooter" drills where men point guns at our kids and fire
blanks at them? Do we really need to have "relocation drills" where
kids are rapidly herded on to buses and told that they must surrender
their cell phones because they will not be allowed to call anyone? Our
schools more closely resemble prison camps every single day, and our
children that are suffering because of it.

It is also important to
keep in mind that much of the time these drills are not the fault of
local school administrators. Often, these drills are being mandated at
the state level. Our politicians have become obsessed with "school
safety" in recent years, and apparently their idea of "school safety"
involves deeply traumatizing our kids.
Earlier today I was doing some
research and I came across a forum where a parent was describing a
relocation drill that would soon be happening at a school in Oklahoma.
Well, I went to public schools all my life and nothing like this ever
happened when I was growing up, so I wanted to do a little digging to
see if this was actually happening around the country or if it was just
an Internet rumor.
Unfortunately, what I found out was quite disturbing.
It turns out that "relocation drills" are being conducted at schools from coast to coast.
For example, the following is an excerpt from a letter to parents about a relocation drill that took place in Woodhaven, Michigan....

Our
school district continues to focus on the safety of staff, students,
and our community. We have a detailed emergency plan so we can respond
effectively to major catastrophes. We work closely with the fire and
police departments from the City of Woodhaven and Brownstown Township to
implement this plan. As part of these efforts, we are conducting a
practice emergency drill on May 19th. It will begin at about 9:20 a.m.
and conclude by 11:30 a.m. This practice drill will simulate a boiler
explosion at Patrick Henry Middle School. We will evacuate all staff and
students from PHMS, Erving Elementary School, and the Administration
Building.

The Woodhaven and
Brownstown Township Police and Fire Departments, DTE Energy, and staff
from Wayne County RESA will help secure the buildings and monitor this
practice drill. Erving Elementary staff and students will be evacuated
by bus to Bates Elementary School, and PHMS students and staff will be
evacuated by bus to Woodhaven High School.

But just
putting kids on buses and taking them to other schools was not enough.
During the drill, some students and school staff were instructed to
pretend to be injured. In addition, parents were instructed not to call
the school during the drill and children were instructed not to call
their parents....

As part of the drill, we will
pretend that some students and staff are injured. Pretend victims will
be assessed and transported to nearby triage centers. Please be aware
that Hall Road and Van Horn Road may be closed to traffic for all or
part of this drill. There will be a number of emergency vehicles at PHMS
and Erving Elementary School during the drill. Your cooperation is
necessary for this practice drill to be successful. During drills and
emergencies like the one we are planning:

• Please do not telephone the school. Telephone lines are needed for drill emergency communications.

• Impress upon your children the need to follow directions and take drills seriously.

•
During an evacuation drill or a real emergency, students will be kept
at their school or will be evacuated to another site. They will be
released only to adults listed on their emergency contact form. Any
adult picking up a student (reunification) will be required to show
picture identification.

• Students and
parents should not communicate by cell phones during the drill or
emergency situation. Students need to be attentive to the instructions
from school and safety personnel.

But at least in that drill parents knew where their children would be taken.
That was not the case during a recent relocation drill in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho....

Students
at Lakeside School District walked out of their schools this morning to
prepare for the worst case scenario. They were transferred by bus to an
off-site location in less than a hour. But it was only a drill.

Their
Bus Evacuation Drill started at 9 a.m. and students were transferred to
their undisclosed emergency location and returned back to school.

'As
you might expect, student safety is our first priority and security is
tight even during a practice,' Karyn Stockdale, district clerk, said.

It was later revealed they were bussed to Benewah Wellness Center as their acting evacuation shelter.

It was "later revealed" where the "undisclosed emergency location" was?
I am sure a whole bunch of parents were thrilled when they heard about that.
What purpose is served by herding kids on to a bus and taking them to an undisclosed location?
School officials just seem to take these little "exercises" way too seriously.
For example, check out the tone in the following excerpt from a school newsletter from one school in Pennsylvania....

As mentioned in a separate letter in our CB Electronic Envelope last Wednesday, our school will be involved in an Off-Site Relocation Drill.
This practice opportunity will sharpen our skills and provide us with
the chance to review important safety procedures in the event of an
emergency. This Relocation Drill is scheduled for Friday, December 16, 2011. Here are some very important reminders for all parents and families:
SAFETY IS OUR TOP PRIORITY!!!!!!

In
every classroom, teachers will prepare students for this activity. To
ensure that every child and adult arrives safely to the relocation site,
no child will be released for any reason during this practice activity
or real emergency. All parents are asked to review the detailed letter
explaining the official steps for such drills and practice activities.

No child will be released for any reason?
What if there is a family emergency?
What if a child becomes very ill?
Our schools are becoming way too militarized. It really is quite frightening to see what is happening to us.
It
takes a lot of effort to pack up all of the students and all of the
staff at a school and ship them off to an alternate location.
The following is another example from one school in Iowa....

The
second drill is planned for Thursday at 9:15 a.m. During the second
drill officials will simulate a relocation of the entire EE-12 student
body and staff by school buses.

For some schools, this kind of a drill has now become a regularly scheduled yearly activity.
The following is from a school handbook in Vermont....

Lockdown
drills are practiced several times a year. In a Lockdown students
remain quiet and undetectable behind a locked door. Students prepare for
these drills and are supported by their teachers. Saint Albans City
School practices, at least once a year, an emergency
evacuation/relocation drill where we leave the school building and go to
alternate sites.

Keep in mind that it says "at least once a year". That means that it could happen even more frequently if they want it to.
Some
schools even have plans for students to be "housed temporarily" at
alternative locations. The following is from a school website in California....

Evacuation Plan: Requires
that all building occupants leave and go to an alternate location.
Evacuation may mean only going outside and away from the building until
an all-clear signal is given. In some circumstances, students and staff
may need to be transported and housed temporarily in another location
until the Go-Home Plan can be put into operation.

In
some instances, parents are encouraged not to pick their children up at
all in the event of a major emergency. The following is from an article
in the Washington Post....

School
administrators in the Washington area yesterday stepped up preparations
for possible terrorism, and most school districts told parents that
they would be prevented, or strongly discouraged, from picking up their
children in the event of a biological or chemical attack.

So what measures would be taken to keep parents from getting to their children?
That is a frightening thing to think about.
But these "relocation drills" are not the only kind of drills that parents need to be aware of.
In
many areas of the country, schools are holding "active shooter" drills
where men in full military gear are pointing guns at children and firing
blank rounds.
The following is one recent example that happened in Brecksville, Ohio....

The
emergency drill at Brecksville-Broadview Heights High involved hundreds
of students, including members of the Drama Club who portrayed wounded
and panicked students.
Junior Ashley Elek said Chardon High
School was on their minds as they went through the very realistic
looking drill, in which many students were "killed" and "wounded."

In
many areas of the country, there is not always advance notice of these
"active shooter" drills. Sometimes students are told that there will be
an "active shooter" drill and sometimes they are not. Sometimes teachers
do not even know that an "active shooter" drill is coming. When that
happens, the results can be incredibly traumatic.
Just check out the following example from New Jersey....

About
50 teachers at a New Jersey school experienced a terrifying moment when
a shooting rampage turned out to be a drill, but the teachers didn’t
know it.

It happened Aug. 28 at the Phillipsburg New Jersey Early Learning Center.

A man burst into the library and started shooting. But the gun didn’t have any bullets, just blanks.

Teachers took cover under child-sized tables, crying and trembling.

'People
are crying. The girl next to me is trembling and shaking. You heard
people crying. You heard other people praying. It was pretty dramatic,'
one teacher said.

Can you imagine?
Why would we ever want to put our children through that?
I think that some of these twisted sickos actually enjoy the thought of making little kids pee their pants.
In some cases, children are told during these "exercises" that a particular group of Americans is attacking the school.
For example, during a terror drill at a public school in Muskegon County, Michigan, students and teachers were told that "homeschoolers" were the ones attacking them....

The
exercise will simulate an attack by a fictitious radical group called
Wackos Against Schools and Education who believe everyone should be
homeschooled. Under the scenario, a bomb is placed on the bus and is
detonated while the bus is traveling on Durham, causing the bus to land
on its side and fill with smoke.

In another case in New Jersey, students were told that the gunmen were from a group of "fundamentalist Christians" called "The New Crusaders"....

Investigators
described them as members of a right-wing fundamentalist group called
the 'New Crusaders' who don't believe in separation of church and state.
The mock gunmen went to the school seeking justice because the daughter
of one had been expelled for praying before class.

What possible purpose do drills like those have?
Sadly, those running things keep wanting to make these kinds of drills as frequent as possible.
In New Jersey, new guidelines require that a "security drill" be held at public schools at least once a month.
As you can see from this document,
an "evacuation to relocation site" drill is one of the kinds of drills
that can be chosen to satisfy this requirement in New Jersey....

The following are examples of other security drills that schools can hold:

•
Shelter-in-place; Reverse evacuation; Evacuation to relocation site;
Testing of school’s notification system and procedures; Testing of
school’s communication system and procedures; Tabletop exercise; and
Full scale exercise.

When I was growing up, there was
just one kind of emergency exercise. When the fire alarm sounded, we
all trudged out to the football field. We stood around and talked for a
few minutes and then we went back inside.
But the environment in
U.S. public schools today is totally different. Our children are being
forced to endure endless "relocation drills", "lockdown drills" and
"active shooter drills".
These drills are just another reason why many parents have decided that it is time to pull their kids out of the government schools entirely.
Our public schools more closely resemble prison camps than they do institutions of learning. Millions of our kids are leaving high school dumb as a rock, but they do know what to do when the alarm goes off.


So what do you think about these drills? Please feel free to post a comment with your opinion below....