“We live in the Shaker Bubble.” It’s a commonly used phrase, and many — including myself — are guilty of using it. It’s often accompanied with sarcastic remarks about our perfectly blended salad bowl of ideas, backgrounds, beliefs, and ethnicities, or lack thereof. In light of recent events, I think it’s safe to say that our illusionary bubble has popped.

Shaker has problems, and it’s time for us to face them head-on. Obviously, sweeping things under the bed and pretending we’re all fine and dandy hasn’t been working out too well for us. These past weeks have been tumultuous at our school, from Trump protests to Twitter scandals, finally culminating with yesterday’s bomb threat, lockdown, and emergency evacuation.

I commend school authorities for their calm, organized handling of yesterday’s extremely trying situation. We need more of this. I hope this becomes a pattern of better managing crises, big or small. We need to acknowledge our issues and keep students, staff, and community informed.

As a district, we have our strengths, but confronting difficult situations has presented itself as a weakness. We have potential to be a strong, integrated, diverse community, but we have to first abandon our facade of already being so — we have plenty of kinks to first iron out.