Do you agree with this?

[Aelwydd]

In revisiting the Dallas/ Fort Worth metroplex tornadoes last Tuesday, one of the things that has stuck with me is how glad I was that my son was home with us at the time. The Arlington tornado came very close to our place before it lifted up; then, that same storm dumped baseball sized hail just west and north of us, and dropped another funnel a bit further north. We felt like we dodged a bullet.

 

We knew there were storms coming, so we stopped lessons and turned the TV on to check the weather. What we saw immediately was a radar showing two massive storm cells, both with a distinct "hook" echo, and one was headed straight for us. The broadcaster was using language, "...large, dangerous tornado on the ground" and the time was approximately 1:30 pm. This gave us maybe 18-20 minutes, if we were lucky, to either get out of the way or take shelter.

 

Getting out of the way wasn't an option, because there were storm cells everywhere. We could easily run into another tornado trying to evade this one. So, we opted to take shelter in a large hotel around the corner, because we live on a second floor apartment, and we felt the hotel would give us better protection in the event of an EF-3+ tornado (which was what I was assuming, based on the language being used by the emergency broadcaster).

 

After everything was clear, we were relieved to find our apartment undamaged, and our car was also spared hail damage. But what occurred to me was, if my son had been in school, we would not have had time to retrieve him and find shelter together. That is a horrifying thought to me, and I'm sure many parents were extremely worried that day.

 

As a matter of fact, the news reported that several schools faced a huge rush of parents during and after the storms in a panic to get their children out of harm's way. These tornadic storms had many schools in the bull's eye that day.

 

Thankfully, no one died, and there were few injuries. But in the craziness, there were some schools that did not immediately release students to their parents. I guess I understand this from a public safety standpoint; but as a parent, it would drive me crazy to be denied the release of my child to me.

 

Here's an article that makes mention of this situation at the very end.

School districts reported sending students into emergency shelters. Parents in Arlington were allowed the pick up their children at the school's normal dismissal time, however children in Dallas remain in the custody of their schools until further notice.

What do you guys think about this? Are my visceral feelings of anger unreasonable? Were the schools right? I just keep thinking that even though the schools have a responsibility to keep kids safe and to guard against the wrong folks taking kids home, it rubs the wrong way.

 

I just want to state again, how relieved my dh and I were not to be separated from my son during this crisis!

Edited April 9, 2012 by Aelwydd

[ashfern]

I think it's better for the schools to have a policy of keeping the kids until the crisis is over. It's safer than all the parents on the roads trying to get the kids. I had to do that once. The school was closing early because we had bad storms (tornado & hail activity). I had to pack up what I was doing & drive in the pouring rain with all the traffic to get my kids. All of us would have been safer if we had stayed put. They were sending kids home on the buses with very little notice that they were closing the schools. Most people in my area (Atlanta suburbs) work pretty far from home. I'm betting a lot of them weren't able to get home before the school buses were dropping kids off. :glare:

[JFSinIL]

The school IS legally in charge of the kid once he or she enters school grounds. Having the kids cowering down in an interior hallway or basement can be safer than them driving in a car that can be damaged. The adults in the school are working to protect all the kids, and do not need to be distracted by dealing with frantic parents. I, and a few other folks, drove to a school (my dd was in middle school at the time) after a micro-burst knocked down 100-year-old trees all over our side of town (I was interviewed and made the Weather Channel standing in front of broken giant trees on our street) and were not allowed to have the kids as the school had not heard that it was safe to let the kids out yet. They had all the kids in an interior hallway area - it would have been difficult to locate individual kids. It was still pretty windy and very heavy rain. They did say that we parents were welcome to come in for shelter.

 

Another time, at a local elementary, the bell had rung and kids had just started to pour out of the building when the wind picked up and sirens went off. The school did NOT let anyone back inside who had left, but everyone was yelling "RUN HOME" and those of us with cars were scooping up as many kids as possible to drive home to basement, etc.

Edited April 9, 2012 by JFSinIL

[lynn]

What I learned through my experience with tornados. Is this, schools have to release children to parents however, it is safer for all to keep the students at the school than having parents on the roads during tornado warnings if they don't have enough time to send the students home safely. The schools will send the children home when it is safe to do so. I sat at home and watched a few weeks ago while the local weather men kept mentioning that ds school was in direct path. Picking ds up at that moment was not an option for travel was unsafe. The tornado was withing 1/2 mile of the school.

[snickelfritz]

School pick-up lines can take 30+ minutes on good days. Larger schools (4,5,6 classes per grade with each having 25-30 kids?) would be even worse. Add in panicked parents and having 18 minutes to find out, go get your child, get through the line, get back to safety...???? I think it's a recipe for getting someone run over and killed or involved in a car wreck.

 

I think the logistics of getting kids to their parents ---especially in larger schools--is such that it is safer to wait until an emergency is over.

 

BTW... I was picking up my child from her private school earlier this year and the gates were closed. Turns out, a violent altercation and a suspect on the run a mile away had caused them to lock down. They were about 5 minutes late to let out, but they wanted to make sure a dangerous person didn't enter campus in the hub-hub. Police notified them that it was under control and they came out of lock-down. I felt their actions were very reasonable.

Edited April 9, 2012 by snickelfritz

[Pamela H in Texas]

Remember, I *thought* we were too far out for a tornado...

Note also that my little kids go to different schools as the neighborhood one starts at Kindergarten.

 

My daughter picked up my little daughter right as the bell rung. Anyone in the pick up line could. The school would not release kids to walk home though and people sitting in the street had to GO pick up their kids too. Your kid could not walk further than the driveway. It irritated my friend whose daughters usually walk. She was there for them, but parked on the street. School would not let them walk those extra several feet.

 

When our tornado hit (I was wrong about being too far out), my son (turns 5 this month), was.....well, five minutes prior to the storm, I was hollering towards the front door. Where was the bus?

 

Then I thought, "oh, we must have been missed. Nothing is happening." It was 3:35. I looked on the news and the cell looked a bit east and north of us. Whew. Then they zoomed in and I saw it was right overhead. Not a full 3 seconds later, we heard this awful racket. DS and I ran into the hall bathroom where my big daughter had V, C and MM. I kept telling them it was okay, not quite believing it myself.

 

When the racket stopped, we went to check out the situation. My friend let me know that our kids were at the local elementary where the bus had been diverted. My hubby came home. We didn't know what to think of the storm. But I knew more than anything I wanted to get to that school and get my kid. Hubby went to get mine and my friend's kids. And honestly? A was better off than any of us. The school had done a magnificent job of keeping the kids safe and calm during the storm. My A has extreme anxiety issues so this was definitely a plus!

 

But I absolutely agree that I wish my kids were home. There have been so many times in the past that I was glad my big kids were home (like Columbine).

 

BTW, the tornado here hit two schools. One of those schools was DIRECTLY across the street from my boys' school. The damage was minor there thankfully and kids still went to school the rest of the week. Still, knowing a tornado was so close....

 

Of course, schools are safer than houses if hit. So maybe my kids would have been better off there. I think of all the other people holding their babies in bathtubs as their homes lost roofs, second stories, or were leveled....eek. We were only such a short distance away from such devestation. It still seems so surreal.

 

Sorry to ramble. I've had a lot of this pent up inside me.

 

Tomorrow, we get our vehicles fixed and later this week, one slope of the house gets a new roof (and damage elsewhere gets repaired). But it seems like a mini-9-11...life has gone on in so many ways and yet we know there is so much going on related to it still also. Thankfully there was no loss of life.

 

So now we are a little nervous about our upcoming spring storms....

[Farrar]

It makes me slightly uncomfortable because I don't trust schools much (go figure!). However, I think it's needed for safety reasons.

[lisamarie]

I had this happen to me last year with my DD who did AM kindergarten. I was waiting for the bus, it didn't come, it didn't come. I was starting to worry and then I got a phone call saying that they were keeping the kindergarteners at school because of a tornado warning, that they would feed them lunch, keep them all day, and send them home on the PM bus. I checked the computer, saw that the warning was for an area not that near us, and went to pick her up figuring she would be scared. She was mad at me because she wanted to eat lunch at school.:tongue_smilie:

 

I would much rather the school hold my child during a warning than risk her being on the bus with no place to take shelter. Sorry, I agree with the school on this one. If parents want to brave the storm, more power to them. But imagine the lawsuit that would occur if the school sent the kids out on the bus and it got caught in a tornado.

[Melissa in Australia]

I think it would be irresponsible for schools to release the students. Here the big thing is bush fires, not tornadoes. And driving through a bushfire is a fast way to get killed.

Plus if the school was releasing students, it would be easy for some students to be miscounted etc. confusion could about on the whereabouts of students.

[NanceXToo]

To me, even if it's safer, if there's a parent that shows up at a school for any reason saying I'm here to get my child, no school has the right to "refuse" to allow the parent to take the child at ANY time, for ANY reason. Even if the parent isn't doing the safest thing. That's the parent's choice, not the school's.

[Rivka]

I wouldn't like it, but I think that it's necessary. It's an emergency preparedness disaster to let parents make individual decisions about whether their child will shelter at school or be picked up and brought home.

 

If it's that dangerous out, parents should be sheltering in place - not driving or walking to school. Traffic snarlups could put parents and children directly in harm's way, or they could impede emergency vehicles.

 

Think of the confusion where the kids are sheltering, at school. Instead of focusing their attention on staying with the kids and keeping them calm, school personnel would have to ferry kids back and forth to their parents. Kids whose parents didn't come to get them would probably get more anxious when they saw others going home. If people tried to organize last-minute or informal carpools ("Johnny lives on my street, I'll take him home too"), schools could lose track of which children they are still responsible for.

 

Better for everyone to have the expectation that kids will shelter in place at school until the emergency is over. Then everyone knows exactly where they should be and who is watching every kid.

[Aelwydd]

To me, even if it's safer, if there's a parent that shows up at a school for any reason saying I'm here to get my child, no school has the right to "refuse" to allow the parent to take the child at ANY time, for ANY reason. Even if the parent isn't doing the safest thing. That's the parent's choice, not the school's.

 

I should have been clearer in my OP, but this is the situation I was thinking of. All the parents who showed up at schools, frantic to see their dc, and being told that they could not regain custody of their kids until the schools decided to release them.

 

I wasn't even thinking of the busing situation, although I do agree that in that circumstance, yes it makes sense for the buses to stay at school, or return there until the storms pass.

 

I was imagining the scenario where my dh and I went half a mile away to grab our ds from school, either before or after the storm, and being told we could not have our child until the school deemed it safe.

 

In all truth, going to the school before the storm wouldn't have likely happened. Eighteen to twenty minutes is not enough time to have gotten him from school and taken shelter. It would have been safest for him to remain there, and that's what I would have done.

 

But, I'd have been mad if I'd gone immediately after and been told I couldn't pick him up. :mad:

 

It's not a cut-and-dried issue for me. I do understand the public safety issues. I just have Mommy issues with being told I can't have my child! :tongue_smilie:

 

(I'm probably being influenced too by what a coworker said to me. He said that when his wife went to pick up their 9 yo ds, he was crying and telling them, "I was scared! Why didn't you come get me sooner?"

 

So ya know. That just brought the whole issue that much closer to home for me.)

[Aelwydd]

I wouldn't like it, but I think that it's necessary. It's an emergency preparedness disaster to let parents make individual decisions about whether their child will shelter at school or be picked up and brought home.

 

If it's that dangerous out, parents should be sheltering in place - not driving or walking to school. Traffic snarlups could put parents and children directly in harm's way, or they could impede emergency vehicles.

 

Think of the confusion where the kids are sheltering, at school. Instead of focusing their attention on staying with the kids and keeping them calm, school personnel would have to ferry kids back and forth to their parents. Kids whose parents didn't come to get them would probably get more anxious when they saw others going home. If people tried to organize last-minute or informal carpools ("Johnny lives on my street, I'll take him home too"), schools could lose track of which children they are still responsible for.

 

Better for everyone to have the expectation that kids will shelter in place at school until the emergency is over. Then everyone knows exactly where they should be and who is watching every kid.

 

I agree with all of the above. That's what I think about, too. I guess a better question would be, what should be done when the immediate threat has passed, but the institution is still in a state of emergency, i.e., is still in lock down mode? How long should parents reasonably be expected to wait before demanding their children be returned them?

 

It was the "until further notice" bit that really got me. That's a pretty indefinite time period for how long I might have to wait before being "allowed" to regain custody of my kid!

[Aelwydd]

Sorry to ramble. I've had a lot of this pent up inside me.

 

So now we are a little nervous about our upcoming spring storms....

 

Oh yeah! I'm right there with ya. And I'm glad you and yours are all safe! Thanks for sharing, it's good to work through that sort of experience.

[Cera]

What I learned through my experience with tornados. Is this, schools have to release children to parents however, it is safer for all to keep the students at the school than having parents on the roads during tornado warnings if they don't have enough time to send the students home safely. The schools will send the children home when it is safe to do so. I sat at home and watched a few weeks ago while the local weather men kept mentioning that ds school was in direct path. Picking ds up at that moment was not an option for travel was unsafe. The tornado was withing 1/2 mile of the school.

 

This is exactly how it is here. The school can't legally refuse to give you your child but they can strongly advise against it and it may take a while because you have to go through the standard check out procedures (so that everyone can be accounted for). I don't like it but I understand it and accept it. It is no different than if my child was at an extracurricular, I can't be with her every moment of every day.

[Parrothead]

 

But, I'd have been mad if I'd gone immediately after and been told I couldn't pick him up. :mad:

 

 

This is the part I find maddening.

[boscopup]

Around here, we've had enough tornadoes that the schools usually send kids home before the event happens, but if it comes up as a surprise, kids stay in the school. They're usually safer in the concrete block school building than they would be at home anyway (especially a lot around here live in mobile homes).

 

A school was hit here back in 1989, after school hours. There were still aftercare kids there, and some painters got all the children out. None of the children were hurt. The school was pretty much leveled. Meanwhile, cars on the road near the school were thrown around. I'd much rather my children be safely in a concrete school's interior hallways.

 

When I was in school years ago, we had tornado drills regularly. I don't doubt that the schools around me would continue to move children to a safe place during a tornado. It's just so normal around here to do that, and we take tornadoes very seriously (this area has been hit hard twice in the last year).

[Giraffe]

I wouldn't like it, but I think that it's necessary. It's an emergency preparedness disaster to let parents make individual decisions about whether their child will shelter at school or be picked up and brought home.

 

If it's that dangerous out, parents should be sheltering in place - not driving or walking to school. Traffic snarlups could put parents and children directly in harm's way, or they could impede emergency vehicles.

 

Think of the confusion where the kids are sheltering, at school. Instead of focusing their attention on staying with the kids and keeping them calm, school personnel would have to ferry kids back and forth to their parents. Kids whose parents didn't come to get them would probably get more anxious when they saw others going home. If people tried to organize last-minute or informal carpools ("Johnny lives on my street, I'll take him home too"), schools could lose track of which children they are still responsible for.

 

Better for everyone to have the expectation that kids will shelter in place at school until the emergency is over. Then everyone knows exactly where they should be and who is watching every kid.

 

:iagree: I am here in DFW and was never more grateful that my daughter was in preschool as I was that day. I was at a doctor's appointment and had to shelter in the building's basement. I called DD's school and was assured that they were sheltering in the school bathrooms (the safest place in that building) and all was well. DD would have been confused if some kids were getting picked up and she wasn't - and I couldn't, as I was in lock down in a hospital. As it was, she thought it was great fun hiding from the "big tomato". Her school is infinitely more safe than being out on the road. I understand the confusion and think some schools could have done a better job communicating, but I attributed that to concentrating on keeping the students safe rather than issuing press releases.

[bettyandbob]

school's around here have plans for shelter in place. In my district elementary schools are 400-1000 students and high schools have 1300- 2500 students. Imagine trying to monitor a shelter in place situation for 800 students and having 100 or more parents show up to collect some of the students. That could completely disrupt the shelter in place and compromise the safety of all students. I agree with keeping students until safety issue has passed.

[Princess Peach]

school's around here have plans for shelter in place. In my district elementary schools are 400-1000 students and high schools have 1300- 2500 students. Imagine trying to monitor a shelter in place situation for 800 students and having 100 or more parents show up to collect some of the students. That could completely disrupt the shelter in place and compromise the safety of all students. I agree with keeping students until safety issue has passed.

 

:iagree:

[Mommyof4ks]

To me, even if it's safer, if there's a parent that shows up at a school for any reason saying I'm here to get my child, no school has the right to "refuse" to allow the parent to take the child at ANY time, for ANY reason. Even if the parent isn't doing the safest thing. That's the parent's choice, not the school's.

 

:iagree: Most patents would agree that the school is the safest place, but they should be allowed to take their kids home if they choose to or at least be with them at the school. Once the parent comes to take the child home, then the school is no longer responsible for the child, and what if the school gets hit and the school is destroyed, the district cannot afford to take on the legal battle that will surely ensue for not allowing parents to remove their children. There are not many basements here, but some people do have storm shelters that are safer than anything above ground.

[elegantlion]

The school IS legally in charge of the kid once he or she enters school grounds. Having the kids cowering down in an interior hallway or basement can be safer than them driving in a car that can be damaged.

 

Being on the road is too dangerous. My sister was huddled in a school hallway during the storms, albeit a university.

 

Even afterward I can see an unwillingness to release. It could become quite chaotic trying to account for each and every student.

 

Ds used to attend private school. I hated those last 15 minutes of school. I'm in line waiting to pick up, he's standing right there in the classroom, I can see him (prek and K had a special line). But I still had to wait. It was annoying. Their school their policy.

 

I am glad when ds is with me during those weather moments though.

[Dmmetler]

When I was still teaching in PS, I wrote the emergency plan for our school (I caught a lot of those jobs-the principal seemed to believe that there was nothing wrong with pulling a music teacher out of her classroom for several days to type reports while the kids watched videos with a substitute, but wouldn't do so to a classroom teacher), and we had a slightly different policy-that if a parent came in an emergency, we'd bring them in as well. The reason was that our school was a big, old, solidly built brick building that had rooms and areas which were safe for storms and most emergencies, and most of our kids lived in poorly built subsidized housing that didn't. I did see one flaw, though. We would only release a child to their parent, and teachers had to stay until all of their kids were picked up. Since most of our teachers had kids in other schools, I could easily see a situation where, all over town, teachers were sitting, waiting with some other teacher's child, but no one could go pick up their child-kind of a dining with philosopher's problem for elementary education. My principal didn't seem to understand the issue (or the reference).

 

Fortunately, it was never put to test.

[Chris in VA]

I agree with the school keeping the kids for safety reasons, but it makes my stomach hurt to not be able to get my baby.

 

It's one of the compromises made when using public schools to educate.

 

Uggh, it makes me anxious just thinking about it!

[Lady Florida.]

I don't like it, but as a former PS teacher I understand the reason for the policy.

 

To me, even if it's safer, if there's a parent that shows up at a school for any reason saying I'm here to get my child, no school has the right to "refuse" to allow the parent to take the child at ANY time, for ANY reason. Even if the parent isn't doing the safest thing. That's the parent's choice, not the school's.

 

Schools cannot legally just allow a parent to come and get their child without signing him out. Having people available to sign students out would put school personnel in danger.

[snickelfritz]

I don't like it, but as a former PS teacher I understand the reason for the policy.

 

 

 

Schools cannot legally just allow a parent to come and get their child without signing him out. Having people available to sign students out would put school personnel in danger.

 

:iagree:

 

When it's a storm lockdown, I would think everyone should seek shelter. When it's a safety lockdown, I know the classrooms go so far as to cover their door windows with paper, lock doors, turn off lights, etc... They lock the school doors and close the gates. I would expect secretaries and administrators to be hidden somewhere, not standing at the front door ferrying children back and forth. I'm guessing the school safety guards patrol, but I don't expect them to spend their time checking students out when it's a lock down situation.

[Scuff]

Yes, they should retain custody and dismiss when the crisis is over. It's a tornato! We can predict a little, but the do what they want. The schools have the responsibility to get the children to safety and keep them there until danger has passed. As worried as I would be, I wouldn't imagine going out in a tornato warning to get my children. They were safer to stay where they were.

[SailorMom]

As much as I'd be physically ill at the thought of not being with my kids during a crisis like that - I think it is a wise policy.

 

A) Parents don't need to be driving through whatever the weather situation is

B) Schools are well built, and generally have thorough emergency plans to keep kids safe

C) It would be very dangerous for everyone involved if a long queue of cars started forming out in front of the school full of panicked moms

D) It would be very difficult for the school to keep track of which kids were where if an evacuation was necessary. This could cause dangerous delays to those still at the school

[dangermom]

I wouldn't like it, but I think that it's necessary. It's an emergency preparedness disaster to let parents make individual decisions about whether their child will shelter at school or be picked up and brought home.

 

If it's that dangerous out, parents should be sheltering in place - not driving or walking to school. Traffic snarlups could put parents and children directly in harm's way, or they could impede emergency vehicles.

 

Think of the confusion where the kids are sheltering, at school. Instead of focusing their attention on staying with the kids and keeping them calm, school personnel would have to ferry kids back and forth to their parents. Kids whose parents didn't come to get them would probably get more anxious when they saw others going home. If people tried to organize last-minute or informal carpools ("Johnny lives on my street, I'll take him home too"), schools could lose track of which children they are still responsible for.

 

Better for everyone to have the expectation that kids will shelter in place at school until the emergency is over. Then everyone knows exactly where they should be and who is watching every kid.

 

:iagree: Those are exactly my thoughts. It's just far too much chaos.

[Mrs Mungo]

I think it's better for the schools to have a policy of keeping the kids until the crisis is over. It's safer than all the parents on the roads trying to get the kids. I had to do that once. The school was closing early because we had bad storms (tornado & hail activity). I had to pack up what I was doing & drive in the pouring rain with all the traffic to get my kids. All of us would have been safer if we had stayed put. They were sending kids home on the buses with very little notice that they were closing the schools. Most people in my area (Atlanta suburbs) work pretty far from home. I'm betting a lot of them weren't able to get home before the school buses were dropping kids off. :glare:

 

I agree with the school keeping the kids for safety reasons, but it makes my stomach hurt to not be able to get my baby.

 

It's one of the compromises made when using public schools to educate.

 

Uggh, it makes me anxious just thinking about it!

 

I agree with both of these. I might not be *happy* with the thought, but it's better to keep kids at school. I am from Oklahoma, and some of our schools are built with the main halls as tornado shelters. You don't want a mass of kids and parents out front when a tornado hits.

[katilac]

I don't like it, but as a former PS teacher I understand the reason for the policy.

 

Schools cannot legally just allow a parent to come and get their child without signing him out. Having people available to sign students out would put school personnel in danger.

 

I wouldn't expect staff to leave shelter so that parents can sign kids out. This is one scenario where I fully support the school in taking control; it's not safe or practical to do anything else. All of the high schools around here have thousands of students, and many of the elementary schools have over five hundred. There's no safe way to check out students during a true emergency.

[In the Rain]

To me, even if it's safer, if there's a parent that shows up at a school for any reason saying I'm here to get my child, no school has the right to "refuse" to allow the parent to take the child at ANY time, for ANY reason. Even if the parent isn't doing the safest thing. That's the parent's choice, not the school's.

 

:iagree: and that is how I voted.

[Joker]

To me, even if it's safer, if there's a parent that shows up at a school for any reason saying I'm here to get my child, no school has the right to "refuse" to allow the parent to take the child at ANY time, for ANY reason. Even if the parent isn't doing the safest thing. That's the parent's choice, not the school's.

 

In this situation I don't agree. The school's personnel should also have the right to lock the doors and take shelter. They shouldn't have people watching and gathering children whose parents show up. My sister teaches in one of the towns that had damaged schools, and I'm glad she and her students took all the safety precautions. There were no deaths, which is amazing seeing the pictures.