Am I Brave Enough to Die for My Students? (Opinion)

Bridget Farr

Everyone was inside, safe behind locked doors, while the local police department searched the neighborhood for an armed suspect. No parents in the parking lot. No classes headed to the garden. The playground was empty except for the kindergartener escaping across the blacktop. My new assistant principal and I sprinted after him, uncertain if we were out there alone. “Am I supposed to throw my body in front of him?” she asked, and I didn’t know what to say.

That run across the playground wasn’t the only time I worried about losing my life at school. Once, I leaned against an exterior door while a man with a black backpack pounded against it, the dispatcher on the line shouting, “Is that him? Is that him?” Another time, I heard the shrieks of students over the radio as a teacher called for help after hearing gunshots that turned out to be only an electrical pole explosion. When a man jumped over the fence of the playground, I ran toward him, my radio slipping on the thin belt of my silk dress, only to find he planned to take his lunch break on our picnic tables.

In each moment, with the adrenaline pumping, I felt calm and in control. Afterward, I’d debrief with my team, naming all the things we’d done right. Made the call quickly. Confirmed everyone was inside. I wanted my confidence to give them courage.

But when I was alone in my office or on my drive home, I’d imagine how things could have gone differently. One of the hardest parts of these events was realizing that the worst hadn’t happened—yet. Still, I would picture my final moments. The man’s fists breaking through the glass. The fence jumper with a rifle instead of his lunch.

The PBS documentary, Inside the Uvalde Response

, uncovered interviews with dozens of officers in the days after hundreds of armed, trained men and women waited 77 minutes to enter the classrooms where children and adults lay dying. Over and over, they repeated the fear that they’d have died if they entered the room. They didn’t have the right equipment; AR-15 bullets would rip through their vests. Watching, I was devastated by their inaction. But I was also consoled to know that even with weapons and body armor and dozens of companions, they, too, were afraid.

I’m not a principal anymore, not because of this fear (at least not mostly), but I still have a collection of mementos from my students. A purple bracelet made of butterfly beads. Stick drawings of me in front of the school. A card thanking me for bringing back chocolate milk. When I think back on my time in schools, I realize my biggest fear was about the kind of person a shooting might reveal me to be. I was terrified to give my life but also afraid I wouldn’t be brave enough to die for my students.

I don’t know if I could have lived with the guilt. Public opinion might not have let me either. If an educator made a split-second decision—if you can call a panicked impulse that—not to leap in front of bullets, would we hold them blameless? I doubt it. Right now, we celebrate the ones who did and the ones who died. We have turned moments of desperation into heroism. Yet it’s not heroic if it’s an unspoken part of your job description.

After the Bend, Ore., shooting, where one teacher died, one was injured, and another tackled the gunman, I saw social media posts proclaiming, “Teachers should never be asked to sacrifice their lives.” While I’m grateful for the sentiment, we already ask this sacrifice of educators, we just don’t name it directly. My educator code of ethics didn’t. Neither did my district safety manual.

I’ve used (and appreciated) the materials from the school safety nonprofit I Love U Guys Foundation, but their current guide for lockdowns

directs teachers, “If it is safe to do so, the teacher should gather students into the classroom prior to locking the door.” But what about the next, more agonizing step? What if it’s not safe? What if a child is alone in the hallway but a shooter is nearby?

We serve in loco parentis while children are in our buildings. A parent would undoubtedly give their life for their child. I imagine the parents at my school wouldn’t want me to sacrifice myself in principle, but if it were their child, I don’t question whose life they’d want me to choose.

After one of the false alarms at my school, I wrestled with my fears with my own parents, educators themselves for decades. My mom, a kindergarten teacher for 32 years, didn’t hesitate: “I would have to save them. They’re kids.” I understood she was picturing her past students, not me, but still I felt an incredible sadness: I’m your kid.

I still don’t have an answer for the assistant principal who asked if she was supposed to throw her body between a kindergarten and a bullet. We rarely name what we expect from educators in these moments, but her question is one I hope we are all brave enough to openly discuss. Without talking about it, society leave educators alone with their fears, uncertain that we’ll support them if the moment comes, and they freeze or flee instead of fight.

So, to my assistant principal who was brave enough to ask the question and to any educator who bears the same weight: You won’t always know what to do, and many times there will not be one right answer. With that uncertainty, it’s alright to be afraid. We did not sign up for this, and someday, if the worst happens, too much may be asked of you. But you, too, are of infinite worth.