A group of public school teachers from Cincinnati are outraged after an active shooter drill sparked panic amongst students. The drill happened on January 24, and the teachers at the Academy of Multilingual Immersion Studies said that they were not notified ahead of time about the planned drill.
Students and teachers feared for the worst when the principal announced that there was an intruder in the building and ordered all the classrooms to go on lockdown.
"I've had the feeling at the first floor, we all felt that it was real," Dianna Schweitzer said during a Cincinnati Public Schools policy meeting. "We didn't hear 'drill' at all."
Another teacher said that some students feared for their lives, while others armed themselves in case the intruder barged into their classroom.
"I've got students packed and ready with scissors," said Kristan Sterling. "Ready to jump. Ready to lunge."
Schweitzer said that while she was glad it was just a drill, somebody could have been hurt if they were mistaken for a gunman.
"My colleague was ready to take out anybody behind the door," she said. "He was not armed, but he had big, heavy things ... He was devastated to learn that it was a drill because he could have seriously, seriously hurt somebody."
School officials said that they typically alert teachers about active shooter drills ahead of time, and claimed that staff members were told it was a drill. They do not know why some teachers were unaware of the scheduled drill. The school board said they will look into the situation and come up with solutions to prevent it from happening in the future.