I read those words and felt like I’d been punched in the gut.

A girl at Santa Fe High School in Texas said she wasn’t surprised. “It’s been happening everywhere,” she said. “I felt — I’ve always kind of felt like eventually it was going to happen here, too.”

After the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, and after all the student–led protests, it felt like we might be building some momentum. Just this week I got an email from David Hogg, one of the student organizers for the Never Again movement, asking if I would help with high school voter registration at one of our district’s high schools.

I was feeling optimistic. Not for the immediate future. But at least for a few years down the road, when these kids start to vote. (And run for office.)

But for now, the thousands of high school students who just want to go to school safely get outvoted by the handful of unhappy students with guns.

The news stories impact the kids at my school.

Just a week ago an announcement come over the intercom, “All students on the playground must come into the building.” Moments later we heard, “We are going into lockdown.”

After school I heard stories from other teachers of high anxiety with their students. One teacher dealt with the rising panic by having the kids barricade the door to the room they were in. One fifth grade teacher had a student who threw up. There were tears in multiple classrooms.

Even our little kids watch the news. They know what’s out there. They are afraid.

When the announcement came on, my kids went into high alert. So I talked to them as I moved around the room. “I’m checking to see if there is anyone in the hall. Nobody. You all know I keep my door locked so all I have to do is close it. I undo the roll of paper to cover the window so no one can see inside.

“Oh, by the way, check this out.” I pushed the wooden wedge under the door and kicked it tight. “That’s an extra lock.”

They laughed. “It’s old school, but it works!”

“What about the other door?” a student asked as I moved across the room.

“It’s always locked,” I answered as I rolled down the paper strip over its window too.

As I was taking care of the doors, one of my boys—on his own initiative—closed the shades on all the windows in the room.

Then I went back to the front of the class and said we could go back to the lesson we had been working on.

Kids said, “Wait! Aren’t we supposed to get under our desks or hide or something?”

I reassured them that the announcement hadn’t said anything about a dangerous individual. And it started with getting kids off the playground.

One student said, “Yeah, at one of my schools we had a lockdown because a bear got on the playground!”

I nodded. “And I worked at a school where we had a lockdown because the neighbor’s bull got loose and it got onto the playground.”

We got back to work. Even my high-anxiety students did fine.

A few minutes later, the lockdown ended.

Shortly after the Florida shooting In February, we had a lockdown drill at our school. I wrote a brief note to parents after the drill:

We had a lockdown drill yesterday. I explained how we keep the doors locked and the windows covered. I said in a real emergency the most important thing for kids to do is to listen and follow directions.

It’s my job to take care of them.

Then I reminded them all that I have been thinking about students’ safety and planning and preparing for how to keep them all safe since before they were born.

(And you should know the district is continuing to plan and implement additional security measures.)

They’re not just your babies.

Jan

Here are some of the responses I got:

“Awww this made my heart melt. Thank you for all up do for our babies. Because of you, our son loves to go to school and feels totally safe. Thank you!!!”

“Thank you for your reassurance. Also for your caring for them while they are with you. This world of ours can be scary, but having someone like you to watch over them while they are in your class, it gives us parents a little peace of mind. It’s tough to send them on their way sometimes with all the crazy things going on. I just give them big hugs and let them know that they are loved more than anything. Then I trust their wonderful teachers and school officials to do their jobs they best they can.”

“Reading this made me tear up with how you said you’ve been planning and preparing how to keep them safe since before they were born.

Hug, hug!”

“This brought tears to my eyes, I am so choked up. Thanking for loving and protecting our kids.”

“The appreciation I have for you is tremendous. Thank you, thank you a million times❤”

“It’s sad that this is our reality now. Thank you for watching over our babies! XOX”

So here is my message for teachers:

I know how much of emotional toll each school shooting takes on teachers. But we need to be the eye of the storm—the calm place, for our students—especially in an emergency.

Even benign lockdowns, like ours, are random events and introduce a feeling of chaos. No matter the level of danger, it’s important to reassure our kids when we do drills and actual lockdowns. Kids need to believe that we know what we are doing and why we are doing it.

I find that explaining what I am doing while I am doing it actually calms the students. They can see there is a reason for each action. It’s almost as if I am reintroducing structure and logic into their world.

Meanwhile, there is a third group of people affected by these drills and lockdowns: the parents, who hear all about them when the kids go home. We can and should expect the district to communicate to parents about the security measures that will help keep their children safe.

But a short note directly from the teacher to the parents makes such a world of difference.