Something I find ironic is how school district administrations all want to fabricate some sort of reaction plan to anticipated emergencies, yet none have any response plan to the threat of terrorist attack. Given current events, I would say this is the most likely catastrophe to occur at a school, and certainly the most threatening to the welfare of the children. Our local schools back home plan to simply lock down the school and detain the children in their classrooms until LE arrives to deal with the threat(bear in mind, nearly all the classrooms have only one means of access and egress). Given the social impact of attacking our schools, I'd say the LEs will be coming in to clean up a huge mess (Columbine was literally "child's play" compared to what could really be accomplished. Look at what happened in Russia).

My daughter's high school has about 2,500 students in it during class time. A good plan properly executed by 3 or 4 individuals would generate at least a 90% casualty rate. One can only imagine what effect that kind of loss would have on a community. Multiply it by, say, 3 high schools, 6 middles schools, a dozen elementary schools, and that is just in our small little podunk burg.

I'll say it again, the veil of security behind which we live our lives is getting thinner and threadbare. It doesn't take much imagination for me to consider what is happening here in Baghdad someday becoming a reality back home. People continue to tell me there's no way this can happen there, our system is working, the threat isn't viable. Hogwash! What kind of system do you think the military has implemented here? When you consider how many thousands of troops we have garrisoned in and around Baghdad, all the technology being used here (and there is stuff here that you would only think exists in Sci-Fi), and that's just US forces, then there's the Iraqi police the Iraqi army, and still you will hear about attack after attack day in, day out. It takes an awful lot of time and energy and effort to stop people who are willing to die to take you with them.