My heart breaks for the families and community at Sandy Hook Elementary. There are no words that can heal the wounds or change what happenened. In Colorado, we learned to get past Columbine, Aurora and Jessica Ridgeway’s murder by being together, appreciating each other and allowing ourselves to express our feelings. As a community, we try to offer comfort and look at the heroes that emerged from these horrible murders and not concentrating on the villains, not giving them the fame they crave. In this case, the person who hit the intercom button office at the elementary school is one of those heroes. This small act allowed those teachers to enact those intruder drills that school districts mandate school employees to practice and saved those surviving children’s lives.
A few weeks ago at my middle school, we practiced such a drill and each time we do this, sadness overtakes me. As a child, we used to practice fire drills and tornado drills, but now schools are forced to practice intruder drills. Today, we have to teach our children that there are mentally ill people who will come into the building and kill them for some irrational reason.
I pray for a time when we will no longer need those drills, but until then, I commend all the school districts for implementing these drills that help our teachers to remain in control to help children get outside safely. I applaud those teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary who helped their students escape. They are the real heroes.