The first two days of school for students in Oakland public schools began not with a bang, but a lockdown -- three of them, in fact, as students stayed sequestered in classrooms as police searched the area around an elementary school for robbery suspects and the areas around a high school and a middle school for a carjacker, according to the Bay Citizen.
Three schools -- Castlemont High School, Horace Mann Elementary, and East Oakland Pride Elementary -- all had their campuses locked down on Monday or Tuesday, according to the Bay Citizen. In one instance, the lockdown ran from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m., when the last students were allowed to go home, several hours after what would have been the end of the school day.
"It's really not a good way to start the school year," Oakland Unified School District spokesman Troy Flint told the news Web site. An average of "two to four" Oakland schools are locked down every week. In a lockdown, students are not permitted to leave campus, entrance to school buildings is restricted, and students stay away from windows.
In all cases, police apprehended suspects without exposing students to danger, Flint said. Still, "it is clearly a stress factor not only for students, but for parents as well."
