‘Just A Drill’ Captures the Terror of an Active Shooter at a School: WATCH

Filmmaker and mom, Megan Jordan teamed up with an all female crew to make the hard hitting short Just A Drill. Determined to follow the rules in an active shooter drill, an overworked teacher in an underfunded classroom battles the impossible choices a leader must make when the drill becomes a horrifying reality. The short is on a winning streak and shows the reality of the difficult situation a lot of American students face, even if it is just a drill. “A lot of us had our own children on set while filming as we are working Moms, the reality hit home of the situation teachers and students find themselves in,” says producer Megan Jordan.

High School teacher Kirk Allen screened the film and said it was eerily accurate and foreboding.

“When I was a kid my father used to say our greatest hopes and our worst fears are seldom realized.” These words came from Jim McKay as he reported the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympic games of 1972.

I watched the documentary as a teenage athlete who understood despite my hard work; I would never go to an Olympic game. I mourned their loss of life, dedication, and selflessness. I mourned with their family and friends for the loss of their loved ones. Could they have won gold? Would their post-Olympic life bring riches, fame, and lifelong national adoration?

Potential is a bitter fragrance when aspirations fall short, yet when an outside force eradicates potential, it is a festering sore that never heals.

Viewing Just A Drill – I see the reality of today’s American school system. The hopes for the children in our schools are equally scaled with or worst fears. We ask questions of why and how lives are taken. With all answers seeming plausible but somehow as the calendar transitions to another day we ask when it will stop? We see potential eradicated destroying the lives of families, friends and communities.  

The tone of the film starts with the often landscaped emotion of an inconvenience laissez-faire nuisance work addition. Mrs. Walker and Jay make small talk in the teachers’ lounge discussing the lockdown drill as if it were non-negotiated contractual chore. The sincerity (value) of such practice (drill) appears to be a burden they wish they could avoid.

Once Just A Drill gets going, real emotions take hold. The annoying drill begs questions. Is it really a drill? Is it there a real shooter in the school? The text from the phone would say yes. The confusion from the walkie-talkies makes it uncertain. Shots are heard outside the locked classroom door, making it seem real?  The hard choice of letting a student in the classroom or keeping them out leaves you wondering – is it a drill or is it real?

Unfortunately, more than a few times in the past years and the weeks and months to come, it will not be a drill. Once the classroom door closes and the drill begins I was immersed in the classroom, listening to the announcements, the steps in the hallway, the echoes of shots and the banging on the classroom door. Mrs. Walker’s decision to open the door or not to open the door is reminiscent of The Lady, or the Tiger? by Frank R. Stockton. I do not envy or judge her choice; so many lives are in her hands.