Brooklyn pols’ bill would reduce number of ‘traumatizing’ school lockdown drills

Drills are affecting kids’ mental health ‘with no proven benefit’

September 5, 2023 Mary Frost

State Sen. Andrew Gounardes (at podium) and Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon (front right) are introducing a bill that would reduce the number of state-mandated school lockdown drills and allow parents to opt out. Far right: Rebecca Fischer, executive director New Yorkers Against Gun Violence. Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle

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BOERUM HILL — School starts Thursday for New York City’s nearly one million public school kids — and so do state-mandated lockdown drills.

Requiring school kids to go through at least four lockdown/active shooter drills a year, however, is harming their mental health without a clearly proven safety benefit, two Brooklyn officials said on Tuesday.

State Sen. Andrew Gounardes (D-26) and Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon (D-52) are introducing a bill that would reduce the number of required lockdown/active shooter drills from four to one a year — and that one should be “trauma-informed,” age-appropriate, provide accommodations to students with medical conditions, and allow parents to opt out, the officials said at a press conference held with parents, medical experts and members of anti-gun groups at the William A. Butler elementary school (P.S. 133) in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn.

“We know from experience and research that these lockdown drills don’t do what we hoped or intended they would do, which is prepare kids for a terrible eventuality in their school building,” Gounardes said.

Gounardes said the drills may be “marginally effective, but often cause deep trauma in students,” citing research linking the drills to an almost 40% increase in social anxiety, depression and mental health issues. “Students have experienced a simulation of being shot at in their school building — a building that is supposed to be a safe place for them.”

After a school lockdown drill he was not informed about, Brooklyn dad Marco Pupo said his 5-year-old child told him, “Oh, there was a bad guy in school.” Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle

‘Bad guy at school’

Young children often do not know the difference between a drill and a real school invasion, Simon said, citing a colleague whose 8-year-old son mentioned to her, “That’s the day the shooter came to school.”

“One of the reasons we are looking to make the training age-appropriate is that we don’t know what young children believe,” Simon said. “We want to make sure that teachers are appropriately trained; that there’s notice to parents so they can prepare their children and tell them, ‘One day this week there’s going to be a lockdown, and here’s why we’re doing it.’ And allow parents to answer their children’s questions.”

Students with special needs also need to be accommodated, Simon said — including kids who have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from a shooting in their neighborhood, for example.

Brooklyn father Marco Pupo told the Brooklyn Eagle that his son, who is currently 7 years old, experienced his first lockdown drill when he was 5 years old.

Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon said that young children often do not know the difference between a drill and an actual school invasion. Rear left: dad Marco Pupo; far right: Dr. Warren Seigel of the NYSAAP. Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle

“I picked him up at school, and I didn’t know that the drill happened because there’s no communication. And he starts speaking about, ‘Oh, there was a bad guy in school.’ So for him it was a real scenario. He didn’t realize the difference,” Pupo said. “But the story that shocked me the most was one of his friends, 5 years old, came to his mom and said, ‘Mom, what will happen if a bullet goes through my body?’

“Just that should be enough for everyone to say, ‘Let’s just stop and figure out what’s happening here.’ So here we are,” Pupo said. “We’re trying to make a change for those kids and hopefully there’s going to be a less aggressive way of doing things that’s going to make everyone safe.”

Pupo added that the drills are “a bandaid” on an issue that should be solved by adults. The drills “are a fake idea of safety,” he said.

The officials were joined by representatives from Moms Demand Action, New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, the NYS American Academy of Pediatrics (NYSAAP) and March For Our Lives.

Dr. Warren Seigel of the NYSAAP said he strongly supported the bill, calling the drills “trauma-inducing,” especially in kids already stressed by the COVID-19 pandemic. “And there’s no proof they work” during an incident, he said.

Robert “The Dad” Murtfeld, the father of two children, noted that a child who started experiencing the drills at the age of 3 years will have gone through 60 of them by the age of 18. “That’s excessive.”

Rebecca Fischer, executive director of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence and a Brooklyn parent herself, said the first week of school was anxiety-inducing enough. “We don’t want to make [the children] afraid,” she said. Speaking about guns, she added, “We have a public health epidemic that is uniquely American.”

NYU college student and member of March For Our Lives Raghav Joshi said that when he first experienced lockdown drills as an immigrant, he was shocked. “Young people do not deserve to be living in constant fear,” he said.

“We’re done being known as the ‘Lockdown Generation,’” Joshi said. “We’re done being told to run, hide and fight.”

Also participating were Sheffali Welch, parent and co-leader of Moms Demand Action and parent Holly Ellis Spiegel.