is anyone out there???

Is it supposed to make me feel better?

It's "Safety in Our Schools" week. The kids came home and told me they had a "Code Orange" drill during class that day.

Heather said after the code was announced, she immediately stood up, gathered her things and proceeded to the door. "What are you doing?" her teacher demanded. "Code Orange, Bomb threat, I'm evacuating," she informed him. "Oh."

Do I think it odd that Heather was the only one in her class that knew what a "Code Orange" was? No. She saw the list of codes a few years ago sitting on a teacher's desk and memorized it. She likes to memorize things, so it doesn't surprise me at all. I do find it odd that none of the teachers know what to do when various codes are announced.

For example. Sarah's teacher locked the door and closed the blinds, as soon as "Code Orange" was called. Which would have been very helpful if it had been a real bomb threat. However, to his credit it was better than my son's teacher---she didn't even pause, but continued on teaching. Finally the school police officer had to come and make them leave the building

For some reason, Heather was once again one of a few students taken during the drill and sent to a special room. These students, if not noticed missing by their teachers, "perish" from the pretend disaster. Last year Heather "died" in a pretend fire when her teacher failed to report her missing. This year, however, her teacher did notice her missing. Most likely he was looking for her to find out when they were supposed to finish evacuating and return to their classroom.

I am not comforted by these drills. If these are improvements from previous years, in the case of a real disaster, my children will never make it out of the school alive---except Heather that is.