Teachers are trained to expect the unexpected. One day, Alissa, a history teacher who posts on TikTok under the name @teachinginstyle, looked out the window of her high school classroom and noticed a pair of bare feet hanging from a school bench.
She knew something wasn’t right. In a split-second decision most teachers hope they’ll never have to make, she locked her classroom door. Then Alissa called the school’s safety number, which nearly triggered a lockdown.
“One: stranger danger,” she explained in a video. “And two, I have a room full of sixteen-year-olds that I need to keep safe.”
Nearly causing a school lockdown
A pair of unfamiliar, bare adult feet resting on a school bench is enough to warrant further investigation by any responsible teacher.
“Outside my classroom, there were these wooden benches. And kids would sit there during break,” she continued. “My class was quietly working, and I glance outside, and I see a pair of bare feet. Like just feet, sticking out from the bench.”
Wondering whether it was a student and if they were okay, she headed outside to investigate, only to find an unfamiliar adult asleep on the bench. Immediately frightened, she recalled, “Three things come to mind. One: Are they alive? Two: Why is there a random adult on campus? And three: Oh my God, are we going to have to go on lockdown?”
Alissa locked her classroom door and called the safety number, describing the situation over the phone. It turns out the feet belonged to a substitute teacher. She concluded, “It was a sub—a substitute teacher—taking a nap on the bench, like wanting to get some sun on the dogs (their bare feet). Oops. How was I supposed to know that?”
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A story that’s both chaotic and funny
Viewers had mixed opinions about Alissa’s story. Some thought she did the right thing, while others were more concerned about the substitute teacher’s behavior. Here are some of the comments:
“I would do the same…”
“OK, but as a sub, I could never imagine taking a nap.”
“not just any nap, a nap on a bench with your shoes off”
“You are 100”
“What on EARTH????”
“there is NOT enough diet coke to handle this..”
“I think anybody would’ve done the same thing in that situation”
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Prepared for school safety
To prepare for the unexpected, teachers must go through training. A 2025 study analyzed a training program designed to help teachers and staff prepare for emergencies. The results showed that participants felt more psychologically prepared and ready to handle a crisis.
It’s important for students to feel safe and prepared, too. But do the drills help, or do they cause more problems for kids? A 2023 study found that 27% of children said the drills made them anxious. Overall, caregivers still supported the preparation, even though some kids felt uncomfortable.
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The substitute teacher’s bare-feet fiasco turned out to be far less dangerous than it first appeared, but it highlights a real challenge teachers face every day. Alissa’s story is a lighthearted reminder of the serious nature of school preparedness, though sometimes there can be a surprisingly simple explanation.
Anyone with concerns about handling different kinds of disasters can visit the FEMA website, where many free preparedness videos are available.
