Updated October 30, 2025 at 12:05 PM EDT
Since the start of the school year, there have been more than 70 shootings on campuses across the U.S., according to the K-12 School Shooting Database.
That level of violence is why educators in the U.S. face what feels like an impossible but very American question: How do you prepare kids for the possibility of gun violence at school without traumatizing them?
It's a question Amy Kujawski, principal of St. Anthony Middle School near Minneapolis, thinks about a lot.
"The biggest, the most important message I can share to my students and my families and my teachers," Kujawski says. "Schools are really, really safe places."
It's likely her school will never have to deal with violence, but she has to prepare the kids anyway.
'We will emphasize the belonging'
NPR visited Kujawski at the middle school this month during the first of five lockdown drills, mandated by the state. It's also the first drill since the August mass shooting at nearby Annunciation Catholic School and Church, which led to the deaths of two children.
"It's terrible. It's unacceptable. I cannot believe we just carry on. And…we do use different language in positive, affirming ways because of all of that tragedy," Kujawski says. "We will emphasize the belonging, the safety, the love and care and warmth."
In Kujawski's office, there are colorful stickers with breathing exercises, as well as fidget spinners for anxious students.
Pinned on her wall is a sign that reads "Hate is Loud. Love is Strong."
There's also a laminated poster that hangs in every room in the building with the school's safety protocols.
"Look how simple it is," Kujawski says. "Hold in your room or area. Clear the halls. Secure. Get inside, lock outside of doors. Lockdown. Locks, lights, out of sight."
The students all know this language, as do the fire and police officers in the area.
Even though statistics show most schools will likely never have to deal with an active shooter, these drills are how American public schools get ready for the worst.
Kujawski and her staff lead with this message.
"Remember, we do this because we want to make sure we feel prepared regardless of any situation that happens," she says.
'This is a lockdown drill'
Seventh-grade English teacher Kathleen West looks around the classroom and points out where intruders might see her students if they were prowling the halls or peering in from the outside.
"We want to stay away from that window over by my desk. So if you can see that window, you're not in a good spot," West says to her students.
Once everyone is in place, West says: "We just have to kind of sit in this unpleasantness for a little bit."
The drill is announced over the loudspeaker.
The classrooms go dark. The hallways are quiet.
School staff check the doors to make sure they're locked. They listen for chatter and peek in windows to see if students are visible.
Minutes later, it's all over and students go from hiding, back to their regular day.
The drill, West says, is as normal as the Pledge of Allegiance.
"You start in like first grade or something," says Phoebe Strodel, 12.
Raegan Dunkley, 12, chimes in, saying the drills aren't scary and if the emergency was real, she knows police would come quickly.
"Thankfully, there's like a police station right next to our school."
'Rehearsing' for their own deaths
But should these drills be normal?
That's a question psychologist Jillian Peterson is trying to answer with her research at the Violence Prevention Program at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn.
She says St. Anthony is an example of a school doing these drills in a trauma-informed way.
They prepare the students, allow families to opt out, work with particularly sensitive kids, and debrief afterwards.
"Because even high schoolers will say, you can't expect me to rehearse for my death and then go back to learning a math assignment," Peterson says.
But overall, Peterson sees lockdown drills with younger kids as concerning.
"A: The most likely perpetrators are already in the building. B: We're not totally sure they work," she says. "C: We don't really, truly understand what we're doing to the young kids. We're just normalizing this type of violence."
Back at St. Anthony, West is unsettled by how ordinary this has all become.
She started the school year a week after the Annunciation shooting.
"You're getting me at a really vulnerable time because my brother and sister both send all of their kids to Annunciation. So they were all in the shooting there. And my brother was there. And my brother-in-law there just happened to be at Mass that day," West says. "So six of my family members were in a mass shooting event this school year."
She says she wishes the right people would take action to make this stop.
"I don't think it's fair, as a school teacher who started out making $30,000 a year and will never make more than $100,000 a year," West says. "My job should not be to save your child's life."
But on this day, during the lockdown drill, she thinks about how she would try to save as many lives as possible.
"I know the statistics don't bear this out, but it just feels like when not if," West says. "If I'm lucky, whatever event happens in my 40-year career…if I make it to 40, I'm lucky if the shooting happens at the other end of the building and not where I am."
The radio version of this story was edited by Adam Bearne.
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