Students were rushed back into class and doors locked as the police searched the house of an armed and potentially dangerous man through the next door neighborhood on Wednesday, Jan. 29, the third day of finals.

The situation was chaotic with students all over the school and grounds, across the street getting food, or waiting out front for their parents. Sophomore Kahrym Fuentes had left after the bell to get lunch at Casa Monte Cristo. Upon returning to the school, he was ushered to the nearest classroom.

“There was a guard who unlocked the door and said I had to stay here,” Fuentes said.

Meanwhile, principal John Koch and a team of staff members were busy sweeping the campus, making sure all students were in a safe place–in this case the cafeteria–and no one else was inside the building.

The “sweep teams” immediately began rounding students up and monitoring the campus with sharp eyes as they communicated with each other and the main office, the “brain” behind emergency procedures.

After 45 minutes of the building being in lock-in mode, assistant principal Aki Mori was finally permitted to release students one at a time to their parents who presented identification.

“It was a team effort,” Mori said. “The front office would radio me and let me know that [someone] was coming back [and which] type of car [they were driving]. I would ask who they were looking for and ask them for identification.”

Though this situation seemed hectic, the staff here has many plans, contingency plans and backup plans in case of any emergency. According to Koch, after these scenarios the entire sweep team discusses areas they can improve or what they would do in similar “what if” situations.

“There really isn’t a handbook for lock-ins. They involve situations that are unanticipated,” Mori said.

A hot topic of discussion has been what to do during lunch time. Students enjoy the freedom of an open campus to get fast food, go home for lunch, walk to nearby restaurants and have a wide variety of options. However, the staff and administration have been preparing procedures for many kinds of lunch-time emergencies.

“If something like this happened at lunch, this is exactly what it would look like. I imagine it would be even more chaotic with students returning from lunch,” Koch said.

A serious hazard to student safety includes threats inside as well as outside the building. If the fire alarm were pulled during lunch, students would need to evacuate the building calmly and follow adult instruction. If a lock-in or lock-down were called however, it would be far more difficult for administration to keep students safe who are slowly trickling in as lunch goes on.

Lock-ins are called for when there is a threat near or approaching the school, and the main office is constantly in contact with the Gresham police station, who tells the administration here when it is safe to re-open the doors.

Because students are all over campus and the city of Gresham at lunch, administration has had to create plans for as many emergency scenarios as possible. They still recognize the fact that in any circumstance they will have to play a lot by ear with the goal of keeping students safe.

“Practice enables you to act more quickly and effectively to real situations,” Koch said, emphasizing the importance of taking drills more seriously.

Many students were inconvenienced by the hour-long lock-in on Jan. 29, but what some do not realize is how important it is for staff to keep the building and every student safe until a legitimate threat is neutralized.

Assistant principal Danelle Heikkila was helping sweep the hallways during the lock-in.

“We’re keeping people as safe as we can because 20 minutes of your life is not worth potentially getting hurt,” Heikkila said.

A seemingly simple solution to drastically increase administrative control over an emergency would be to close the campus at lunch. However, according to Koch, this is impossible right now because of the size of the cafeteria. It is built to hold about 400 students.

Either a complete reconstruction of the cafeteria is necessary, or they would have to separate student lunch periods, which is also undesirable because there would have to be at least four lunch periods, forcing students to eat too early or too late in the day.

What does help administration ensure student safety is complete cooperation from students, everyone keeping calm and either exiting the building immediately or returning to their classroom, whichever the situation calls for.