Schools must redouble efforts to ensure the mental, emotional and behavioral health of their students when conducting active shooter drills, a new report contends. Here are some strategies for mitigating harms to students.
Leaders should follow trauma-informed, developmentally appropriate approaches for active shooter drills, according to a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. These practices vary depending on when they occur during the drill. Some examples include:
Before:
- Design drills that incorporate discussion-based and standard response practices, promoting skill-building with clearly defined action steps, including staff-led discussions, storybook reading and student-teacher tabletop exercises to teach emergency procedures.
- Adapt drills for individuals with functional and access needs.
- Consider the frequency of drills to minimize unnecessary stress and disruption.
During:
- Use clear communication throughout the drill to reduce anxiety.
- Ensure that wellness supports, including access to school-based mental health staff, are available for students and staff.
After:
- Provide time for students and staff to discuss and process the experience.
- Check in with vulnerable students and staff to address emotional or psychological distress.
- Conduct an after-action assessment to evaluate results, lessons learned and successes achieved.
Meanwhile, the researchers recommend preventing harm by not:
- Conducting simulation exercises with students or requiring all staff to participate.
- Including high-intensity, hyper-realistic or high-sensorial components (firing blanks, asking personnel to act like an intruder, etc.).
- Deceiving or misleading students and staff to believe a real active shooter event is occurring.
The current landscape
In 2024, schools saw the second-highest number of shooting incidents, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database. It fell only 19 incidents short of the all-time high of 349 incidents recorded in 2023.
So far this year, the organization has recorded at least 144 incidents, which vary in description.
According to the most recent 300 incidents recorded, the most common reason for a shooting was an escalating dispute, which accounts for 75 cases, followed by:
- Accidental: 32
- Drive-by shooting: 28
- Illegal activity: 17
- Intentional property damage: 10
Other reasons included situations like officer-involved shootings, a hostage-related event and indiscriminate shootings.
View the full data here.
