Bellevue East high school teachers had to put lockdown protocol into action on December 6 due to a swatting call from outside the country.

At Bellevue East, drills prepare everyone in the school for the possibility of a lockdown. The protocol for faculty and adults includes turning out the lights, moving away from sight and maintaining silence.

“There’s a lot of research out there that says being able to get out of the building is the best factor for surviving but that’s not what the protocol is,” instructor Joseph Hamik said.

During the lockdown, many teachers were able to take charge and quickly follow protocol as best as it fit their circumstances. Despite this, some teachers found that there were challenges that occurred while attempting to get into a safe area.

“At that time my door wasn’t able to lock, but I had that adjoining room so I just moved all my kids into the classroom next door,” instructor Karen Ziegler said. “My lock is maybe twenty years old so when that happened it was really scary.”

This emergency was unexpected to instructors and caused a variety of responses from both students and faculty alike. Some recall a feeling of fear, while others remember being able to think more clearly than they would have previously expected during an emergency situation.

“We didn’t really know what was happening, only that it was something,” Hamik said. “We had to just mentally prepare.”

Luckily, many of Bellevue East’s staff have gone through training, including watching educational videos and practicing for events or situations like these knowing exactly how to handle the situation. Required training provided by the school and other organizations like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have been reportedly helpful and appreciated by teachers, and had helped them throughout the experience.

“All the teachers I know at this school have gone through the training. We like to be very safe,” instructor Lilly Gulley said.

All around the school, teachers explained how during the lockdown, they did their best to keep students safe even in the unexpectedness of the situation. With the different classrooms and teachers, each room’s response was different, but all worked to get what was needed done, and to get everyone to safety.

“I try to take these things as seriously as possible because not only do I think about it in the context of my classroom but in the context of the whole school,” Hamik said.

Many people worked together to follow procedures as accurately as possible and used their training to help them do so. Instructors like Gulley believe that what they learned has helped them react appropriately and effectively.

“I’ve read the handbook and gone through all of the training,” Gulley said.

Some teachers have never experienced a situation like this before, so the new experience, though it was said to have come with challenges, was handled well. Out of this unpredicted crisis, Bellevue East faculty found ways to learn how to grow and improve their emergency responses.

“We did a debrief with our building and district administration, our building safety and security team, our district safety and security team, as well as with BPD to review the incident and how it went,” Assistant Principal Nathaniel Bacon said. “We also discussed the use of our notification system (CrisisGo) and the use of the intercom to relay the message.”

Using this situation to better the schools response and protocol, many faculty worked together to improve their responses in case this event happens again. As well as this, the school safety team met to discuss the effectiveness of the Standard Response Protocol.

“It was an opportunity for not only the Bellevue Police Department, but our school specifically and the safety and security folks to take a look at procedures,” Hamik said.

Teachers said the situation helped them gain some perspective as well as helped students understand what would happen in an emergency. Overall, from secure drills to fire drills, many staff members have decided that in the long run the drills have helped them abundantly, and they are now much more prepared for future situations.

“I think that the one we had in December, the lockdown situation we had, I really think that probably changed everyone’s mentality moving forward,” Hamik said. “Because now that it’s still in their minds, then people will take it a little more seriously.”