Yesterday was a tough day

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Yesterday was a nightmare in so many ways for me. The day started strong with a 2 hour delay, which was nice because I could sleep in a little before work. The issue with working at a school is that when there is a 2 hour delay, is that our schedule gets completely messed up, and children usually thrive on routine. When the routine is off, the behavior is usually terrible, and yesterday was no exception; that said, they've been pretty bad behaviorally since we came back from winter break. It just happened to be worse yesterday than usual. I walked my kids to Encore (music, PE, art, library) as I usually do and was grateful for the reprieve. I usually stay in Encore with them, but the music teacher doesn't like paras in her class unless they are really needed for behavior reasons, and thankfully, my buddy is typically well-behaved. I was looking forward to going back to the classroom and just enjoying the silence, but then I got a text message from my son, who normally doesn't send me text messages during school hours because his phone is supposed to be away, and he is a rule follower. He messaged me, "We are on a lockdown" with no context. Living in the US, my mind automatically goes to a school shooter. I started to panic a bit. I then quickly went online to see if I could find any information. I no sooner pull up facebook and I see that there was a bomb threat, and there had been several bomb threats at schools all across Ohio. I start to calm myself, knowing that it was probably a hoax, someone making a call to scare people, with no real threat behind it, but you honestly never know. I originally messaged my son asking if he was ok and if he was calm. I knew he wouldn't be calm, but I also wasn't sure if they were reassured or given any additional information. They weren't told anything. I was one of the first people in my building to learn about the lockdown because no parent calls or emails had been sent yet, but several of us had high schoolers who messaged us. They originally didn't tell any of us anything. The middle school, which is attached to the high school, was obviously on lockdown too, but they aren't allowed to have their phones on them at all and have to leave them in their backpacks. My son asked to message me and his teacher allowed him to. He told me he was afraid he would get in trouble for continuing to message me, but he was scared. I told him they could come find me if they had an issue with it. My son has extreme anxiety, and if I can help calm him, I'm going to. I told him he was safe, and if I thought for a second he was in real danger, nothing was going to keep me from finding a way to get to him. He told me he loved me and he wanted to come home. They were not allowing parents to pick up children until the lockdown was lifted. I was fairly certain he was safe and told him that as soon as the lockdown was lifted, his dad was going to go and get him. I thought about how scared he was and how worried I was until I learned more about what was going on, and I could only imagine what parents who had gone through school shootings must have felt. It's scary to hear your child's school is on lockdown with no context. To see my son message me, "I love you mom, I'm scared" it hits differently. The reality is the world is not a safe place; it's so easy to take every single day for granted. I told my son I loved him and kept reassuring him that he was safe, and as soon as we could get to him, he would be picked up from school. He told me no one was even allowed in the office after they lifted the lockdown. They know how my son is, and I felt he should have had access to the guidance counselor. I even told him to find the guidance counselor after it was all over, and he said he wasn't allowed. My child has a lot going on mentally, and things like that really scare him. This is the second bomb threat he has been through. I'm sure it probably won't be the last. I'm glad they take them seriously, unlike when I was in school, and they just went about their day as usual. I would have let him take today off, but he has a choir concert tonight, and he had to be at school for rehearsal, as it's a grade and a requirement. I was kind of hoping they'd cancel this morning; they are currently under another delay, and we have been having some pretty thick fog. No child should ever have to worry about whether or not they're safe at school. My child should have the right to feel safe at school, and this was just another reminder to him that he isn't. Working in a classroom myself, I am also aware of the realities of what I need to do in case of a lockdown. If the teacher isn't in the room when we are under a lockdown, I am then made the responsible adult in the situation. I need to make sure the kids are quiet and make sure we can exit out the windows if needed. It's a scary thought. Yesterday we had the conversation that if we were in a real life lockdown situation where we needed to be quiet for survival, we would be the first to go, because our kids don't know how to be quiet. We have one kid who would be throwing stuff, wanting to go out on break, and we wouldn't be allowed in the halls. The kid loses his mind during fire drills. I keep thinking about how unsafe it would be for everyone in that situation. We had a surprise fire drill when one of our teachers was out, and we had a sub, and I suddenly had to become responsible for our kids because the sub didn't know the protocol for fire drills and since it wasn't planned, the teacher didn't think to inform her of what to do. I forgot the emergency backpack and the list of the kids' names. Thankfully, our homeroom teacher had the list, figuring I'd forget, and handed it to me and asked me to just list the kids that were missing. I have had to take on a lot of leadership roles over the past couple of years because of situations that have come up. As a para, my main purpose is to be support for the child I'm assigned to, but we often have more responsibilities that are overlooked. I often feel like we are overlooked and underpaid, considering everything we do. I love flying under the radar since I don't like attention on me, but I do wish my pay would reflect everything I deal with.