At 1:11 p.m. on May 29, faculty members received a text informing them of an “‘Alert Status’ due to an external, undisclosed threat.” Music teacher Eric McMillan hurried his 24 students out of his classroom, C223, across the hall to a room with a locking door. “I feel unsafe in my room,” McMillan said of his classroom, which doesn’t have a working lock or intercom.
A week later, on June 5, a handgun was found in a student’s bag while going through security. The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and the DCPS police were immediately contacted, came to the school, and, according to the MPD, an arrest was made.
The threats against JR—the latest in a series of security dangers in the last three years—stunned the campus and left many staff and students calling on the administration and the city’s Department of General Services (DGS), which is responsible for maintaining DC buildings, to rectify long-standing vulnerabilities. “I’ve been nervous to come to school because anything could happen to us and we wouldn’t be protected,” junior Jaqueline Downing said.
In the first incident, MPD said in a report that, “On May 29, 2025, between 12:34 pm and 1:50 pm staff members from the listed location reported receiving an email pertaining to a threat to conduct physical harm to staff and students.
Principal Sah Brown said in an email to the JR community that the incident involved a “threat of violence against our building”. He assured JR families that MPD arrived on the scene and conducted a sweep, securing the school’s perimeter.
“I saw like a bunch of police going into the school, and I was really confused,” senior Fiona O’Keeffe said.
MPD monitored the JR campus for the rest of the day, allowing students and staff to enter and exit the building in a regulated way, and after-school programming continued as normal. At 3:30, MPD assisted in dismissal. “Please be assured that students and staff remained safe and accounted for during this time,” Brown said in his email.
JR was placed under a special attention status by DCPS, which has since been removed. The discovery of the handgun by security at the main entrance renewed the calls for additional security and infrastructure.
After the second security incident, Brown sent another email to the JR community. “Please be assured that no one was harmed, and the weapon did not make it past our abatement equipment and security officers,” he said. “The matter was handled promptly and in accordance with our security procedures.”
Brown also encouraged parents to help their children seek mental health resources if needed. ”Please reach out if we can connect your student with a trusted adult,” he wrote. “The safety of our students is paramount.”
Safety at JR has increasingly become a bigger concern in the minds of teachers and students alike.
Teachers told The Beacon that they have been more vigilant since the first threat. History teacher Robert Geremia said that he was concerned about the door leading outside to the portable and emailed Brown. The principal then repositioned 9th Grade Dean Juan Dixon to monitor the second-floor door.
Other teachers voiced similar concerns. Science teacher Daniela Muñoz said that teachers with classrooms on the second floor were taking new precautions. Muñoz’s classroom is adjacent to big, open windows and an entrance to the greenhouse, but since the threat, she explained, “I’ve been keeping it more covered.”
In recent years, several breaches have exposed vulnerabilities in JR infrastructure. In 2022, JR went on lockdown because of a drive-by shooting on Chesapeake Street. In 2024, on two separate occasions, guns were stopped at the front entrance. In October, earlier this year, students from a different school broke into JR and physically assaulted a student.
The incidents have caused anxiety in students and staff. Concerns center around the lack of intercoms and properly working locks.
“The intercom in my room has never worked for as long as I’ve been here,” Joella Braun, an English teacher, said. Other third- and fourth-floor teachers also said they are unable to receive announcements, posing risks in the event of an emergency.
Brown said the lock on her classroom door doesn’t work properly. “When my door is locked, a student is capable of opening it with his finger,” she said. McMillan has also been teaching in a classroom without a consistently locking door. He said that city workers have come to repair his lock, but “It’s always been broken.” ‘
The Beacon conducted a survey of rooms around JR, asking if they had working locks and/or intercoms. The survey asked 70 classes, and 36 of them had either a broken lock, intercom, or both. This means around 50% of the classrooms in JR face security concerns.
Many teachers said they wish they had been better informed during the May 29 threat. “I pulled my phone out to text other teachers because I was so confused about what was going on,” Braun said.
Muñoz said that, without fully understanding the situation, teachers can feel stressed and unsure of how to protect students. “I would have appreciated knowing exactly what the cause of the alert status was,” Muñoz said. “We are adults. And again, we are in charge of protecting [the students] when we are in our classrooms.”
The Jackson-Reed administration has taken initiative on some of these issues, like adding foot locks to doors that don’t lock.
To request a repair, a teacher must submit a work order that is reviewed first by JR officials, who decide if the issue should be passed on to DGS or resolved internally. Some teachers said they have been waiting months for requests to be fulfilled.
“I have filled in the form,” Braun said, speaking of her experience in trying to get her intercom fixed. “Last year I was very good about filling it in every week, but nothing changed.”
Teachers have complained that the DGS has been unresponsive to intercom repair requests. ,
JR Strategy and Logistics Manager Branden Hall noted one ongoing DGS security upgrade: a new monitoring system. “DGS took proactive measures this year and are currently installing new cameras throughout the entire building and new monitors to view footage within the security office,” Hall said.•