On Monday, April 3rd, San Marcos High School went into lockdown after the police received a call about a school shooter on campus. Even though the whole situation that was called in was a hoax, many students, teachers, faculty, and parents felt concerned for our (students) safety. Vice principal Dr. Alvarez, told her side of the story and explained her thinking process. 

“My initial thought was school safety, student safety. The truth of the matter is if something was happening on campus, we would know before law enforcement gets here, we would be reacting to it already. So for me that was a first sign that it may not be a legit call. Number two, the call was concerning rooms 75 and 76. We know we don’t have rooms 75 and 76 on our campus. But what happens in these situations is, the minute that call is made and law enforcement has to react, our decision making comes to a halt and we work in tangent with law enforcement, so their call was, we need to check every room. So that’s how it transpired.”

With most of us left with questions and concerns, many students felt the pressures of the matter and feared for our lives.

“During the lockdown I was in the cafeteria and at first a lot of the students weren’t taking it seriously because of the lack of communication and people didn’t know what was going on. People were also being really loud and it was freaking me out,” said an anonymous San Marcos student.

Yet, many students took the initiative to look after their fellow classmates. Dante Bruice, junior and student athlete at San Marcos High School, gave his perspective on the matter. 

“I wasn’t worried of course, I was really just thinking about my next move because if that guy came into my classroom there wasn’t gonna be hiding screaming, yelling or crying, it was gonna be me tackling that guy and saving the classroom.I was making sure my class was safe while the lockdown was going down and I wanted to protect my school of course. I wear this lion on my chest and I wear the red and blue with pride, because Royals take pride.”

With rising concerns on whether or not a situation where a hoax like this could occur again, school faculty and staff assure that we will be better prepared. Vice principal Dr. Alvarez gave a statement on the event,

“I wanna say we were really well prepared, but not perfect. We definitely learn from these things so that we can always have a room response  should something like this happen again, or heaven forbid an actual event happen. We can always get better.”

With the growing number of school shootings in America, there is a cause for reasonable concern. Yet, it seems that we are in good hands under our faculty and law enforcement.