Butts in the air

Today was one of those kids of days that I completely despise.  Spring in the south in completely exasperating to me, and it looks like it is going to start early... that means TORNADOES.  So the day was spent watching the news, keeping track of tornado watches and running errands when it looked safest. (Of course errands were kept to a bare minimum.)

I just watched a news segment that shows what they do in the schools during this kind of weather.  When it is determined that a tornado is within a certain distances (up to a half hour away), kids are lined up in hallways and positioned facing walls, on their knees with their butts in the air.

Now, the buildings are seldom strong enough to stand up against a tornado (which I don't understand at all... we should have schools made from monolithic domes in this part of the country), so I don't know see how being in the butt-up position is going to help kids any more than hopping around on one foot.  I actually like that idea better because kids aren't being traumatized by the oncoming storm, they are
instead being distracted.

I know for a fact that it is traumatizing because the last year my kids were in school we had a close-ish tornado (pretty much an hour away) and instead of letting us pick up our kids and taking them home to our safe basements, they did the hallway butt-up thing.  They finally let them go home hours later, hungry, and tired, and which point my son had a complete meltdown.  He was truly traumatized, and the closest tornado was a hour's drive away.

I guess the schools cannot do better than this, but it's not good enough.  And the news report showing how wonderful this process is did nothing but make me mad.

Check out this video on a better idea for school construction:

br />
FREE HOME EDUCATION WEBSITE
ahermitt.com