Hey, Gav Festlisteners, this is Emily Baslan, and I'm here to share something we thought you might be interested in.

If you have any school-aged children in your life, you know that lockdown and active

shooter drills have become a routine part of their school experience. These drills now take place

in fully 95% of American schools. What you're about to hear is a collaboration between

slate and the trace, a non-profit newsroom covering gun violence in the United States.

It's an audio project featuring firsthand accounts from Kids of All Ages about what it's

like to go through these drills. We hear a lot about school shootings, but we're just starting to

have a conversation about how they affect even the kids who may never go through one, because of

all these drills. And while this hasn't necessarily been a big issue in the preliminary stages of

the 2020 election, we may very well see candidates start to weigh in. You can hear more from the

students on slate.com. I am in kindergarten. First grade, second grade. Sixth grade, eighth grade, ninth grade. I'm in the tenth grade. I'm in 12th grade.

And I live in San Diego, California. I'm a touching New Jersey. I'm Louisville, Kentucky.

Baltimore City. LA County. South Orange, New Jersey. I live in Seattle, Washington.

I'm Elizabeth Van Brockland. I've been covering gun violence as a reporter for the trace for four

years. And for the past couple of months, in partnership with slate, my colleague Alon Stevens and

I have interviewed two dozen students of all ages in towns and cities across the country.

We wanted to know what they see, what they hear, and what they feel during what has become a routine

experience in America, the school shooter drill. As I listen to these kids in their living rooms

and bedrooms, two things struck me. First, this is a generation that has grown up doing lockdown drills.

Second, most of these kids know exactly what the drills are for, whether we adults realize it or not.

Before I had these conversations, I didn't really understand how the constant

threat of shootings has changed the experience of going to school. You're about to hear from some

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