Principal Suspended Over Terrifying School Safety Drill

Kindergarten students during a school lockdown drill in Oahu, Hawaii in 2003. Photo by Phil Mislinski/Getty Images

The principal of a Florida middle school was suspended Tuesday after approving an unannounced safety drill last week that put armed police officers in classrooms with guns drawn, sending the school into lockdown mode. Terrified students texted parents, fearing for their lives.

The drill, organized by Jacquelyn Moore, principal of Jewett Middle Academy Magnet, and the Winter Haven Police Department, has garnered national attention. It showed “a lack of good judgment,” Kathryn LeRoy, superintendent of Polk County Schools, admitted at a school board meeting on Tuesday, according to the Lakeland Ledger. “I very much regret that this occurred.”

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Moore has been suspended pending an internal investigation, LeRoy explained at the meeting, and district rules for lockdowns have been amended. In the future, officers will not carry weapons during lockdown drills, administrators will notify students and parents at the start of a drill to let them know it is only a drill, and staff members will oversee phones and school entrances to let people know that lockdown is a drill.

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"I believe conducting a drill with officers having weapons in their hands is unnecessary, ill-advised, and demonstrated that school administration at Jewett Middle Academy Magnet, which was responsible for the coordination of this drill, exhibited a lack of good judgment and did not have a clear understanding of how the drill should be conducted," LeRoy told Lakeland Local. “My Department of Safe Schools requested that routine lockdown drills be conducted at all our schools. This request did not call for an ‘active shooter drill,’ and did not include that officers should have weapons in their hands… The Department of Safe Schools is conducting a thorough review of what took place and will report to me.”

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In a statement about the drill, Charles Bird, chief of police at the Winter Haven Police Department said, “The drill was not an exercise with SWAT teams, diversionary devices or role players storming the school as has been portrayed by the media.” He added that a school resource officer and a police officer, both in uniform, “made an independent decision to conduct the drill with their firearms in the low-ready position (pointed towards the ground at the side).” Once Bird learned about the guns being drawn, he noted, “I immediately mandated future drills without drawn weapons within the City of Winter Haven. I continue to support these drills without firearms, and value their importance in maintaining the safety of students and staff.” 

Moore’s decision to carry out this drill is emblematic of a growing problem in school administrations, says Kenneth Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services in Cleveland, Ohio. “I have long been an advocate of schools diversifying their drills, but over the last two years — since Sandy Hook — I have seen more and more cases that have gone over the top and crossed the line of reasonableness,” he tells Yahoo Parenting. He has no doubt that Moore was acting with good intentions, but still, he adds, “too many administrators are thinking emotionally rather than cognitively. While we all want safety for our students, we need to look at what we’re doing to be sure it isn’t hurting more than helping.”