Not for Fires. We visited Mary's class room again this morning. As we were walking out, we saw some printed instructions for, what seemed to us at first glance, responding to a fire alams. As we looked closer, the instructions began to look a little odd: (a) close the curtains when the alarm is sounded, (b) leave the classroom and shut the door, (c) sit the children down in the hallway, out of the line of sight of any window, (d) as many children as possible should to into the Bible Studies Dept (which has no windows and door from the hallway that locks.

This are "lock down" instructions. At each end of the hall-way that bisects the class room wing there are double metal doors to the outside. Mary says that these are locked when there is a "lock down" drill. She said that there were such drills in which she participated at schools in the US. But, she said, these somehow seem "more real".