Students and staff alike had a spooky start to their morning on Tuesday, September 27th. While Oakmont was scheduled to have an announced ALICE drill during homeroom on that day, a more ‘real’ procedure was initiated. 

In the early morning, Principal Lizotte came over the intercom, explaining that the school was going into lockdown and a shelter in place. The most striking words he said, however, were “this is NOT a drill.”

Some students were not in their A block classes yet, and trying to get there when Mr. Lizotte spoke. This led to kids scrambling into the closest classrooms they could find. People were also stuck in the locker rooms and library. Many incoming arrivals were outside, and awaited instruction at the corner of South Maple Avenue. The ones coming in even later were stuck in traffic out on the road. Police ended up telling these folks to turn around and go back home. 

The reason for the lockdown was an unspecified external threat to the school. Gardner High School also received this threat, and other schools received similar threats in that week as well. Authorities were immediately contacted and both Ashburnham and Westminster Police arrived quickly. 

After concluding that there was no immediate and specific threat to the school, The school said that teachers could resume instruction if they felt it appropriate, but everyone still had to remain where they were. 

Students who were waiting outside ended up being escorted into the library by Mr. Lizotte. A little while later, everyone in the library was escorted into their classrooms by Assistant Principal Jenn Spear. The shelter in place was lifted later in the morning, and students were sent to their homeroom to take a breath. 

Principal Lizotte made an announcement on OTV during this time, ensuring everyone’s safety and thanking everyone for their cooperation during the situation. After that, students went to their B block class and resumed normal activities. 

As expected in a situation like that, attendance was down and a lot of students were stressed and felt unsafe afterwards. Because of this, many kids ended up getting dismissed once the shelter in place was lifted. The school later stated that any absences from this day will not be counted. 

Possibly the most frustrating thing of the whole debacle is that it even happened in the first place. It certainly seems this was not a legitimate threat to Oakmont, but it still happened and had to be taken seriously. 

Unfortunately though, a threat to a school is not uncommon nowadays. At this point in history, we often hear about these things happening; sometimes as just an empty threat, but other times it turns out to be real. Schools used to be considered the safest place a student could be, but now all of that is changing. 

Luckily, our administrators and law enforcement were able to handle the issue safely and effectively. Nobody was hurt, and Oakmont is back to its safe learning environment. Still though, a school is full of kind, caring students trying to learn and prepare for their future. 

Why would someone ever want to disrupt that? It truly is an upsetting and frustrating topic.