EDITORIALS

Prowler
Staff box

School
Security

Stony Point High School

2,604 students, 271 staff

1801 Tiger Trail
Round Rock, TX 78664
(512)-428-7000
(512)-428-7280 fax
http://schools.roundrockisd.org/StonyPoint/

January 2016
Vol. 14 Issue 2

January 2016 Prowler

The issue: While lockdown drills are made to be

safe and efficient, they have become scheduled
and routine for some teachers and students.

Ab o u t Us

Our stance: To ensure campus safety, lockdown drills need to

be revised to include better communication and training, more
drills and a change in timing for drills
The pros
1. Discussing and reviewing procedures would allow students
and teachers to be equally prepared for emergencies
2. Practicing drills more often would give students more
opportunities to learn to exit neatly and safely
3. Changing the timing of lockdown drills to lunches or passing
periods would make the drills more realistic based on other
schools disasters
4. Restructuring drills has the potential to save lives if an
intruder did enter the school
The cons
Changing drills could cause chaos
Modifying the time of drills to lunch time could cause
disruptions to the lunch process unless a new time schedule
was created
Moving drills would potentially take more time
Without proper communication, some might
mistake a drill for a real alert

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Bylines

by
staff reporter
Izabella Solis

The Prowler will run bylines on all stories expect the staff editorial, which
is to be read as the opinion of the Prowler staff, and any story that would
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Awards

The 2013-2014 staff received: UIL ILPC Award of Distinguished Merit and
Bronze Star, NSPA All American and Pacemaker finalist and CSPA Gold
Medalist and Silver Crown.
The 2014-2015 staff received: UIL ILPC Award of Distinguished Merit and
Bronze Star, NSPA Pacemaker finalist and CSPA Gold Medalist.
The 2015-2016 staff received: TAJE Best of Show online newspaper, 2nd
place Best of Show small newspapers

Editor-in-Chief
Rebeccah Macias
Staff Managers
Syeda Gilani
Delilah Rivera
Staff Adviser
Rebecca Plumley

Staff

Justin Baham
Rachel Boone
Tyler Chasteen
Christopher Davila
Shelby Hughes
Carlo Moran
Johnny Nguyen
Alyssa Ochoa

Alora Osborne
Lexus Palacios
Jenna Ruiz
Izabella Solis
Nayma Villalpando
Kathryn Weems
Caleb Wiesenhutter

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email: sphsprowlereditor@gmail.com
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Editorial

Lockdown drills need to be revised to better prepare

students, teachers for unexpected situations

Prowler
Staff editorial

To be prepared for a potential

crisis situation in which a volatile
intruder enters the campus, students
and teachers complete at least one
announced and one unannounced
lockdown drill a school year.
Even though the campus exceeds
the Texas Education Code 37.108
requirements in terms of number of
drills, the campus should do even
more to ensure safety.
The whole purpose of the drills,
which is to practice safety procedures
in case of an emergency, often seems
to be missed. Therefore, campus
administration should consider
modifying its current procedures
to include more drills with more
realistic settings and increase
communication with adults on
campus during the drills.
While there is some type of drill
every month, lockdown drills are
only performed once a semester.

These drills seem to be consistently

planned at a convenient time of day,
around 10:20 a.m., to avoid issues
of disturbing lunches and causing
traffic problems during last period.
Since there is no way to tell when
an intruder may appear on campus,
sticking to one time schedule
isnt as responsible as rearranging
the schedule for the day or even
extending the lunch period to allow
more realistic drills to happen.
Along with timing of drills,
procedures also need to be revisited.
Currently, teachers communicate
with those patrolling the hallways
by using red and green cards slipped
under the door. Following the
universal meaning of red and green,
anyone can guess what is going on in
the classroom. The red cards mean
there is an issue, and the green card
means that everything is all right.
The cards are also an obvious signal
that lets an intruder, just like a law
officer, tell whether or not someone

is inside the classroom.

Finally, communication needs
to be increased with teachers when
it comes to drills. While teachers
get emails about upcoming drills
and they are issued a flip chart with
procedures, emails sometimes go
unread and charts are easily put in
the back of a desk drawer. Multiple
ways of distributing information,
such as hard copy and remind 101,
should be used for drills, and a
review of safety information should
be conducted at the start of every
year to keep both old and new
teachers prepared.
Faculty and administration might
say that more drills at different times
of day, using difference procedures,
would create chaos, but all these
changes could lead to a safer and
better prepared school environment
in case the unthinkable did happen.
To better protect all, the campus
should revisit and modify procedures
for lockdown drills.

Lockdown drills
are utilized
so staff and
students can
practice the
proper
procedures to
use in the event
of an actual
emergency.
That includes
bad weather,
fire and
intruder drills.
- Principal
Anthony Watson