[mvpel]

Putting students in a state of mortal dread, and hammering it home by having a disguised person pull on the doorknob, is nowhere near the same category as a fire drill.

[SoftballMominVA]

I didn't equate it to mortal dread, I pointed out that kids are not given warning of an upcoming fire drill and since they have so many of them, they treat them as routine, even though in 4 instances there was a chance of injury.

These teachers pulled a prank that went wrong. Someone should have thought ahead that telling kids there was a gunman on the loose so soon after the VT killings was about the worse thing they could have done. I suspect that several teachers will pay for this mistake with their jobs and the tax payers will pay out a settlement to the families.