A few weeks ago, on February 25, Greer Middle College held a surprise lockdown drill.

Lockdown drills are crucial to keeping students safe at school; however, there is no reason to make a drill more realistic than it has to be.

Surprise lockdown drills may hurt students more than it prepares them for a real lockdown. The majority of students and even some teachers were disappointed in the lockdown for some reason or another.

Some students pointed out that surprise lockdown drills were especially brutal to kids who have been in real lockdowns before, and it may even trigger traumatizing memories for students.

Other students mentioned that if we can have a surprise drill at any time, that only makes real drills far scarier. For example, if we have a real lockdown a few weeks from now, students may disregard it, knowing there have been surprise lockdowns in the past.

However, Greer Middle College also made a giant mistake, which made the lockdown even worse of a decision.

When GMC announced the lockdown drill, they failed to mention whether we were supposed to go into a partial or full lockdown, which caused some teachers to continue teaching during the lockdown drill.

Maybe instead of having a surprise lockdown, we should have a drill during lunch or in-between class changes to teach students what to do no matter where they are during a lockdown.

Overall, most students believe that the lockdown was not a good decision on GMC’s part; however, it’s important we know what to do in these situations and are ready for them just in case.