Becky Ferrigno

Because school should be for learning, not lockdown drills

My classroom is a beautiful open space perfect for dancing, making music, and throwing scarves into the air with joyful abandon. It is not so ideal for hiding.

When the fire alarm rings in our building, and a computer voice shouts over the PA system, “Lockdown, lockdown!” my students leap to their feet and race to the back of the room, pressing themselves against the only wall without windows. As the flashing strobe lights illuminate their frightened faces, they curl into the smallest shapes.

They watch as I lift the eleven-by-seventeen piece of black construction paper from the back of the door and place it over the door’s window, securing it with tape. This worn classroom supply is the only barrier between someone outside looking in. The head of security hand-delivered it to me after my classroom was deemed “not secure” by the local police. Every year, I beg to have a blackout curtain installed. Something more durable than the paper secured by my trembling hands with generic-brand tape purchased for a dollar per roll. Every year, I receive more construction paper through inner-office mail.

As a country girl, I grew up surrounded by gun owners. Men and women who kept their guns locked in huge steel cabinets that weighed more than we did. Who brought their children to shooting ranges to practice and then didn’t tell them where they kept the gun-safe key when they got home. My friends’ parents understood that access to lethal power comes with great responsibility.

I am voting for Vice President Harris and Governor Walz not because I am anti-gun, but because enacting commonsense gun laws will keep those of us hiding behind sheets of black paper safer from the individuals who should never touch a weapon in the first place.

Becky Ferrigno is a middle grade author, music educator, and parent.