A rumored threat, a frantic text: ‘This is high school in America’

“We need to stay in our classrooms. I’m hiding. I am really scared. I love you.”

My heart skipped a beat as I received that frantic text from my daughter, Sophie, last week. A student at Juanita High, she was scheduled to speak at a pep assembly. En route, she heard an announcement that students were to stay away from the gym and remain in their classrooms.

After a tense hour, the “all clear” was delivered. The administration had been investigating a rumored threat. A few minutes later, a fire alarm shrieked to life.

Nervous students and teachers peeked out of their classrooms, wondering if by filing out they were playing into the hands of a gunman.

Sophie texted back, terrified: “I am shaking. It is unclear what is happening. I don’t know what to do.”

As a parent, how do you reply to that text? Do you tell her to get down? To run? To stay with the class?

Thankfully, the fire alarm was triggered by burnt popcorn in a microwave — an unrelated but ill-timed incident. I was lucky. My student was going to come home safely. While it turned out there was no actual threat at the school, the panic kids felt was all too real.

Let’s be clear. This fear was not due to lack of preparedness. School officials, police and firefighters acted quickly and decisively. And my daughter is no stranger to lockdown drills. Our school conducts A.L.I.C.E. (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate) training — the active-shooter exercise where kids are taught to throw any object they can reach at an armed attacker.

But Thursday was different. She was shaken to her core. Mass shootings have become so common that her first thought was not that this was a drill or prank, but that it was now her school’s turn for a “Parkland moment.” Fear had driven teachers to question the fire-alarm protocol, students to frantically text one another and parents to race to school.

This is the water we ask our children to swim in now. This is high school in America.

What kind of effect is this ongoing fear having on our kids? Since Columbine, we have asked so much from them, from our society. We ask children to cower in closets to hide from gunmen. We ask teachers to lay down their lives to protect students. We ask school districts to implement anti-bullying programs, first-responders to create elaborate safety plans.

Everyone has stepped up — except our state legislators.

Despite public support, lawmakers have refused to enact simple changes that would make it just a little bit harder to access firearms. Washington Senate Bill 6620 — a modest proposal to raise the age to own an AR-15 assault rifle from 18 to 21 — was up for consideration the same day the scare happened at Juanita High. Our lawmakers did not even bring it to floor vote.

This was not a radical proposal. It was a modest safety change.

Our community — our country — is asking for more rigorous safety measures, including thorough background checks and making it harder to access military-style firearms. We are ready for lawmakers who will vigorously oppose fortifying schools with more guns.

I have been jolted out of complacency, and so have my neighbors. More than 300 attended a meeting for gun safety last week. The previous meeting had 11 attendees. Students at every school in my neighborhood walked out in protest Wednesday — tired of being targets. Communities all over Seattle are banding together to protest on March 24.

We want leaders who will make gun safety their issue. We must start taking actions now to make schools safer. It’s time. We, the parents, students and future leaders of America have had enough.