Life in the Ghetto

I taught for many years in schools in "that part" of town; you know, the bad part. Never heard of Pittsburg, California, there could be a reason. We had many a lockdown, many teacher "all calls" (meaning rumor had it something was going to go down after school and all the teachers had to report to their morning/afternoon "duty" to prevent incidence (never quite got why all the teachers had to stand outside when they thought there was going to be a shooting, or knife incident). Even in Idaho, we had a lockdown at the elementary school when a guy across the street had a gun in a "hostage like situation", and there was a gang related shooting so the high school that I taught at was always locked. Wow - what's with these schools I've taught in?
So today, I'm pulling up to school to pick up Thornley and the road is blocked with cop cars. I'm thinking, was there an accident, what is going on? And I'm getting a bit nervous. A woman pulls up next to me and says their are in a lockdown and they are going to bus our kids to another school to be picked up. I called the school office and they said to just wait, they thought it would clear up soon, the police just had to do a little sweep threw the wooded area behind the school.
According to one of the ladies in the office, the community college had an emergency test today and it was so loud that all the schools in the area heard, "Get into the buildings and lock the doors", so they did. Then I guess one of the 5th graders, who had been out at recess, said they thought they saw someone with a gun in the woods. Police came to check it out, and deemed it clear, so while Cori, Mason, Jack and I are sitting in the parking lot we see a line of cops with big ole guns doing a perimeter sweep thru the playground. Haven't seen that much action since the SWAT team came to the neighbors house.
I thought Thornley would be FREAKED out, but he came running out of class telling me that they'd been in a lockdown, but it was boring because they had to lay on the ground with the lights turned off and no one could talk.
I'm glad the school took all precautions, and of course it's always better when there is a supposed gun on the OUTSIDE of the building as opposed to the inside (another plus for the "pod"-ness of the school).
Guess I should end my post and look into some homeschool curriculum!