During October, an announcement aired over both campuses of the high school’s P.A. system, informing students and staff to shelter in place. This shelter-in-place prompted most teachers to shut their doors while the students, thinking nothing of this other than a medical emergency, continued chatting with their classmates. Eventually, a little over 20 minutes later, the shelter-in-place ended, and students were instructed to move to their next class. Unbeknownst to the students and teachers, this lockdown was a response to a swatting threat. 

“I would like to say I was surprised, but I wasn’t because things like that happen a lot and more often than I think even students realize. I think we’ve had already had like two this year, and for different reasons it’s a lot of the times they’re just empty threats but obviously they can be [real] but I do think the protocols to me feel a bit outdated in ways because of the way that like we had got a threat and then had a shelter in place and that’s not really something that I feel like..that could in turn like harmless because we sheltered in place but I do think that, that might have been the right precaution at the time due to not knowing if the threat was viable or not,” senior Kara King said. 

Learning this information can trouble some students. This is not the first time something like this has happened; just last school year, a day of school was canceled due to a potential threat that later proved false. 

“[It] raises anxiety and fear, and as quick as we can get information into people’s hands to let them know what’s going on, the better they feel about what we’re doing behind the scenes to investigate and monitor it, from my perspective that went really smooth last week but I know the impact can be pretty significant,” Principal Jason Schrock said. 

An email was later sent out informing that it was, in fact, a swatting threat, and while classrooms were sheltered in place, law enforcement was investigating the school. However, this email was only sent to staff and parents—not students. 

Fear and anxiety with these events can be common for students and staff due to the events they have watched on the news over the past few decades. On April 20, 1999, the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colorado, marked a turning point in American school safety. Since then, countless more school shootings have plagued the nation and remained constant in the news. Just this year, in September, a high school in Georgia had four fatalities and more injuries from an active school shooter. Many students and staff can remember past events that happened only an hour away from the halls of Howell High School. 

“I think it creates a sense of realization that it is possible here sometimes when you hear about things on the news. [When] they’re in other states sometimes across the entire country, it feels like, ‘well, that would never happen here.’ When it happens within an hour’s drive, like to a Oxford or a Michigan State, I think it creates that sense of realization that you know we’re all susceptible to this, and we all need to take precautions,” Assistant Principal Mr. Jonathan Stolle said. “And having those strong relationships within our community and amongst each other to report dangerous situations so hopefully we can head off things [concerns] like this.” 

King was leaving the Michigan State campus from a theater class as the shooting was starting, with many of her friends and teachers left behind. It wasn’t until she was driving home that she started hearing about what was happening. Neither anyone she knew nor herself was hurt in the event, but it stayed with her, causing her to choose it as her topic for her Global Scholars Program at Howell High School. 

“Not in just the sense of I was there, it’s in the sense of I could have been two miles away, and then I would have been in that kind of thing, and that made me just like want to effect change in America and hopefully through the Global Scholars Program I will be able to do that,” King said. 

“Have strong relationships with each other and with staff so that we don’t have to worry if we’re close tight knit community and we take care of each other we don’t have to worry about somebody doing something dangerous to us hopefully because we take care of each other,” Mr. Stolle said, recommending this for all students to do to help the community.

Howell High School has and will continue to make adjustments to improve the school security. 

“I think for the most part we’re a lot safer than a lot of other schools and a lot of other areas so that’s nice like one of the main aspects is us living in a safe town having a safe area But I definitely think that there’s some safety precautions that we could be taking that we’re not,” King said.