DURING prom week, students experienced a lockdown with cover incident. During first lunch and 3rd period, a parking lot shooting occurred. It took place close to both Granger and West Lake Jr. High.

The administration took immediate action about the circumstance and declared it a shelter in place situation. A shelter in place situation is declared when a threat is near the school, and during it, external doors are to be locked but classes continue as normal.

About 15 minutes later, the intercom declared the situation as a lockdown with cover. Lockdown with cover is the ultimate lockdown, where there is potential threat on school grounds.

Quickly, classrooms turned their lights off and some rooms even stacked chairs by the doors. Students did a really good job by acting quickly and finding shelter. The school was quiet, which is excellent because Granger was prepared.

A concern with students was substitutes. According to the Granite School District, substitutes cannot lock doors.

The administration has not stated anything about this issue, but it is expected to be taken care of. It should not be a worry though, as fortunately the school is coming up with more detailed plans for future lockdowns.

Being a lockdown, it would be expected for everyone to freak out. According to students, everyone seemed to be calm once they got inside a classroom.”It was scary but I felt safe. The school made me feel safe and calm,” Millynn Bajo (12) said. Of course, there were some kids who were freaking out and that is okay. No one was hurt which was great, and everything seemed to run smoothly.

Michael Aldana (10),had a different experience. “I was at lunch buying a water bottle when someone from a classroom stood up and yelled at everyone to rush into a classroom. That made everyone run to a classroom in a berzerk way,” Aldana said.  He didn’t think the situation was handled efficiently.

“I think we should’ve been told calmly because we can avoid freaking out. I also think we should do practice drills during assemblies and before and after school. It can happen at anytime so we should at least have an idea of what to do,” Aldana said.

It seemed that everyone knew the procedure during the lockdown. The posters by the doors seemed to have given students an idea of what to do. These posters should be located by the door of every room. These posters show the procedure on what to do during a lockdown depending on the type of lockdown. Before, the school had different procedure handouts. The handouts were created in 2014 and then the district decided to modify them. The posters are more specific and easy to follow.

Most students did not know what happened to cause the lockdown to occur. Rumors around the school said someone threatened Granger High on an Instagram post days before, but that was not the case.

What happened was that two groups of juveniles fought verbally and physically around 3300 West and 3420 South. One group opened fire on the other group, but fortunately no one was injured.

Gladly, the threat did not go into the school and everyone was safe. Most of the juveniles were arrested and held for questioning.

Alex Jimenez (9) had a different experience from other Lancers at school. On his way to McDonalds, Jimenez was able to see the juveniles running from McDonalds, the place in which the incident happened. “I saw the kids running across the street on my way to McDonalds. I was by Baskin Robins with my friend and I joked to my friend saying they were going to jail. Little did I know, they did end up getting arrested when they reached Carl’s Jr. I did not know what was going on until I arrived at the school. I was in awe but I was not scared. It was a weird thing to experience though,” Jimenez said.

It is very important to feel safe at school. The lockdown should not be a problem, because it was handled correctly and efficiently. Most importantly, the police did their job and kept kids outside safe during the arrests.