Mother says teacher warned son could be left behind

An Icelandic mother says a teacher told her that staff might leave her son behind during a school shooting if he could not follow instructions. She recounted the exchange in an interview with mbl.is’s Dagmál programme.

Dagbjört Barringer Gunnarsdóttir moved back to Iceland in September with her American husband and five-year-old son after 12 years in the United States. She said an email from her son’s school had praised him for doing well in a drill and said he had received a lollipop as a reward. The drill was designed to prepare staff for an armed attacker entering the school.

The drills took place twice a year at the school, where all the children had special needs. Staff practised moving several children to safety, locking them in soundproof rooms and keeping them quiet. Dagbjört said her son, who has special needs, would struggle to hide or remain silent. When she asked what would happen if he could not follow instructions, she said the teacher replied: “If there really is a shooter who comes in here, we save the children we can save, and not those we cannot save.”

“I heard it very clearly: if he doesn’t obey, he is left behind,” Dagbjört said.

The school had double doors with bulletproof glass, metal detectors and a camera system to monitor people entering. Despite the security measures, Dagbjört said she feared a shooting and worried about how staff could protect her son while also caring for the other children. “I had nightmares about it,” she said.

After she had moved back to Iceland, news broke of a shooting at an elementary school in Oregon on October 15. A 16-year-old entered a classroom for children with special needs, killing three boys and a teacher. A seven-year-old girl who uses a wheelchair and another teacher were injured. Dagbjört said the news brought back the fears she had lived with in the United States and made her think of the children’s parents, who she believed may have shared her worries.