Active Shooter Drills, why they are doing more harm than good.
I’ve seen some horrifying coverage of ill-planned, poorly executed active shooter drills and exercises. There is a massive push to do them, and not without merit, however the likelihood is still extremely rare, and the execution is causing more harm than good. So as a parent, you need to ask:
1) What is the message, scenario, and what type of screening is occurring BEFORE the exercise or drill takes place. Are YOU being asked beforehand for triggers in your child than may impact them negatively without proper handling.
2) What resources are being provided during the exercise/drill and afterwards to help with children who experience PTSD from the drill. What resources are you provided as a parent to help your children cope? And what are the signs and symptoms of PTSD or signs your child may be struggling with anything said or witnessed during the drill. You need to know and the school SHOULD be providing resources for YOU.
3) Your child may come home with questions about the drill and unless you are in the field of dealing with these situations, you probably don’t have the best library of resources to address them. The school should be providing you with a list of commonly asked questions children may have by age group so that we can all get on the same page. I’ll never forget the day my daughter came home asking how a “wild animal” could get on campus to attack them (this is what they were told and it varied from class to class-BAD-IDEA). Fortunately, I could help her mine through the confusion the school had caused, and I was forward with her. I helped her handle the truth while providing options to resolve the situation.
4) Make sure there is a team of trained professionals there to evaluate the exercise. I’m not talking about school/district staff. You want representatives from PD, FD, Emergency Management, Public Health etc. They all provide valuable input and ultimately will be the ones running the response and recovery. You want them there. DEMAND that they are.
5) Ask for a formal written after action report (AAR). This is what we call them in emergency management. You want to see what happened well, what needs to be improved upon, but more importantly ensures they are actually doing this correctly and taking the necessary time to plan properly for a successful drill. Lessons learned and areas for improvement can be provided without compromising school safety (even if they want to redact the hell out of it).
6) Ask for a copy of your schools Comprehensive Safe School Plan. This is a public document and should be publicly available. You want to not only see that goals and objectives are identified (at least 3 annually) but how they were determined, and where they are in the process. If they can’t do this, then they are failing to meet the minimum requirements in the Safe School Planning Laws in California.
7) What are the visitor policies on your campus, and are they being followed (ask to see when the last time they actually tested the policy). Because there is no point in having a policy if no one is following it.
This is not by all means an inclusive list of everything that should be happening around these drills. However, it helps start the approximate conversation between educators and parents to help make our schools not just feel safe, but actually be safe. -Soraya
“There’s no evidence that they work, and if the real thing does happen, when adrenaline is pumping, all those lessons learned can be forgotten”-
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/active-shooter-drills-are-scaring-kids-may-not-protect-them-n992941