Santa Rosa High School parent on the horror of Friday's campus lockdown

At 10:57 a.m. Friday, I got a horrifying text from my daughter, a Santa Rosa High School junior. It was the last day of school, just an hour-and-a-half before the start of summer. Seniors were practicing for graduation ceremonies outside.

“All good at school but do you know what’s going on?” she wrote.

It’s never a good sign when your high school kid starts by telling you they’re OK. Teenagers only do that when something really bad is happening.

Within minutes, we learned what it was. And for the next 2½ harrowing hours, Santa Rosa High School was on lockdown after a 15-year-old student was reported to have a gun.

As a newsroom employee working on unrelated stories, you learn to tune out the police scanner most of the day. School lockdowns have become pretty common, and we pay mild attention to the crackling chatter surrounding them unless the words “shooter” or “gun” are used. But this time was different. It was my kid, locked in a classroom with the lights off and the windows covered as police swarmed the campus looking for a student with a gun.

So this time, I sat inches away, listening to the play-by-play of what was happening on emergency radio frequencies: The name of the student they were looking for. What classroom they thought the student was in. The friends who might know where this student was. Whether the person still had a gun, or if they ever really had one at all.

It was nerve-wracking and painful to hear, but at least I knew what was happening.

My daughter and I texted throughout the event. She would tell me what was taking place at the school. I would tell her what I could about the police action. Her classmates, she said, didn’t seem all that freaked out. I knew their parents would be.

Most arrived at Santa Rosa High with little or no information about what was happening. Police surrounded the campus. Helicopters were flying overhead, and tactical weapons were at the ready. Although we were posting information on The Press Democrat’s website as quickly as it could be confirmed by police, there were more questions than answers as the minutes turned to hours.

Where was the suspect? Did they have the gun? Were they dangerous? Were any shots fired?

Like so many other parents, I’m furious that this is the reality our kids have to experience. No one should have to practice “active shooter” drills at school, but on this day I was glad they had. Everyone knew what to do, from teachers and students to local authorities. There wasn’t a panic; there was a controlled action to get students and faculty to safety. That’s a good thing, and for that I’m grateful.

Finally, police found and detained the student suspect, not far from campus. As I heard police calling the all clear, I breathed a sigh of relief. It was over, at least for Friday.

I can’t pretend I know how to stop this, and I’m not going to get political about the reasons this may be happening, because far better people than I have tried and failed to make a change. I have an opinion, but I feel helpless to make any of this go away with my actions or my votes.

So, like millions of parents in this country, I tell my daughter every day how much I love her. I tell her to be safe, and to be aware. And then I let her go to school and pray that I never get another text like the one she sent me Friday morning.

Heather Irwin is a Press?Democrat staff writer.