Apalachee High School teacher shares how he protected students during shooting: NPR

Jennifer Carter, a teacher at Apalachee High School, said she felt “helpless” as she tried to protect her students during a shooting at the school this week.

Barrow County School System

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Barrow County School System

Georgia is required by law to conduct school shooting drills, and when a gunman arrived at Apalachee High School this week, many teachers and students there began training.

In a heartbreaking account shared widely on social media, Jennifer Carter, who has taught Spanish at the Winder, Georgia, school for more than 20 years, described her terrifying experience of putting her preparations into action for a moment she hoped would never come.

“It was the worst 20 minutes of my career,” she wrote in a Facebook post late Wednesday evening, a few hours after the attack.

The brutal attack left two students and two teachers dead and nine others injured. When the attack began, Carter said she initially told students it was just a drill to calm them down.

“I lied,” she began her post. “I told them to go behind my couches (thank goodness I no longer have desks and have bulky furniture now!) and be quiet – the quieter we are, the quicker the exercise is over. I knew that was a lie. I knew that’s how I plan my furniture arrangement every year. My kids were able to just hide and not panic for over 10 minutes.”

Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents enter an entrance at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, on Thursday.

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“They still trusted me and did exactly what I asked them to do.”

When it became clear that there was a real threat – “we heard knocking on doors, walkie-talkies and shouting in the hallway” – she told her students that this was not a drill.

Despite all her preparations, Carter said she felt helpless protecting her 18 students. None of her students, including her daughter Anna, who was not attending class but is studying at the school, were unharmed.

She said her students – and, as she stressed, they are not just students, but “children” – are “so brave.”

“They still trusted me and did exactly what I asked them to do. And all I could do was ask them to listen to me and hide. … No idea what was going on. More screaming, knocking on doors. Finally the door opens and we are evacuated to the soccer field. Police everywhere. Guns are pointed at us as we leave the building. And yet they do exactly what I ask them to do.”

In July 2023, a state law requiring annual shooting drills took effect, requiring schools to report completion of drills by Oct. 1 each year. Thirteen states do not require regular shooting drills in schools, according to a February report by PBS, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune.

Carter’s post sparked a heated online response, with many citing her story as an example of an all-too-common threat faced by teachers and students across the country.

“We just can’t accept that this is a normal part of life. Something has to change,” says a post by Pastor Zach Lambert, who shares Carter’s words on X.

Landon Benson, who commented on Lambert’s post, said, “Every single teacher feels this. Like a punch in the gut. I find myself scanning the rooftops outside. I think almost daily, ‘Where are we going to run out here in the field? How can I get their attention when they’re far away from me? How quickly are we all going to react?'”

Last year, Carter was named Teacher of the Year by the school.