Portola Stages Lockdown Drill in Wake of Recent Shootings

The energetic outdoor atmosphere of the middle schoolers at lunch and P.E. at Portola Middle School in El Cerrito was suddenly interrupted Wednesday morning by a loud horn and a "code red" announcement on the PA system.

It was a lockdown drill in which the approximately 270 seventh graders who were outdoors at the time immediately dashed to classrooms, turned off lights and locked the doors.

The idea for the drill originated with El Cerrito police Officer Clyde Cheng, who is assigned to Portola as a school resource officer under a contract with the West Contra Costa Unified School District.

Cheng said he and the school administration planned the drill because of the recent shooting incidents in the country. One that has prompted much focus on school campus safety was the Dec. 14 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where gunman Adam Lanza killed 20 children and six adults before taking his own life.

"The main purpose is to have a plan in place in case something does happen," he said.

The students were informed ahead of time of the drill, he said. They were instructed to run immediately to the nearest classroom, lock the door, turn off the lights and stay away from windows and the door, Cheng said.

"We want to make sure our students are safe," said Matthew Burnham, principal of the 525-student school.

The attached video begins with the school yard before the drill and shows Burnham and Cheng together just before Cheng asks the school office to sound the alarm. It then shows students rushing to classrooms and Cheng checking doors, and ends with the students back outdoors.

"That was much better than I thought it would be," Burnham said.

Cheng said he was pleased with how the drill turned out, though he found two doors that were not locked and observed that students did not flee as quickly as they probably would have in a real emergency.