As the nation watches the news unfold about the Connecticut school shooting, Youth Radio spoke with Bay Area parents about what it feels like when an emergency happens at their child's school. Their reactions were everything from paranoia, to panic, to anger.
The following segment aired on KQED News.
Adobe Flash Player is not installed. Please download and install it to listen to audio.
Guadalupe Garcia has a fifth grader at an Oakland public school that has been locked down multiple times this year. The first time it happened she says her son had nightmares.
GARCIA: In the middle of the night he jumped out of his bed and came running to my room.
Now, Garcia regularly worries about her son’s safety. Parent Wanda Cole-Frieman recalls being at work in San Francisco, when a lockdown happened at her 9-year-old daughter's private school in the East Bay.
COLE-FRIEMAN: It’s your baby and your mama bear comes out. And you want to be able to be able to feel like you do everything you possibly can to put them in a safe environment and when that safe environment is compromised, I mean it just takes your breath away.
Cole Frieman says the night of the lockdown, her daughter talked a lot about police vans and helicopters. As a parent she says she tried to put the event in context and make sure her daughter felt safe going back to school.