With limited research on active shooter drills, schools should first do no harm as they conduct the exercises by mitigating possible effects on students’ psychological and emotional well-being, a new report concludes.
“These practices are intended to prevent tragedy and to prepare students and staff to respond successfully should one occur,” said the consensus report, released Wednesday by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. “Yet in the process of preparing for rare but worrisome events, we must also ask: What is the impact of these heightened worries on the mental, emotional, and behavioral health of students and school staff?”
The congressionally mandated report, which was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, was written by a panel of experts who reviewed existing research to create evidence-based recommendations for educators, researchers, and policymakers.
“Although these protective practices have become ubiquitous in U.S. schools, there is remarkably little evidence to guide their design and implementation,” the authors wrote.
While at least 37 states require schools to conduct drills, the exercises vary widely in terminology, intensity, duration, frequency, and scope.
Some states encourage schools to conduct multi-option or “run, hide, fight” drills that teach students how to barricade classrooms and “counter” attackers through tactics like throwing books. At least six states—California, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Washington—prohibit realistic simulations with effects like the sound of gunfire. Others allow them.
Some states only require schools to conduct simple lockdown drills, which teach students to quietly wait in locked classrooms with the lights off and can be used in a variety of emergencies.
Schools may conduct drills as physical exercises, classroom discussions with students, or a combination of the two.
Further complicating the matter, educators and policymakers often use the terms “lockdown drill” and “active shooter drill” interchangeably, which can further complicate discussions of best practices. That inconsistency also shows up in research on school drills, which often lacks information about effects on specific populations, like students with disabilities.
More research is needed to measure longer-term positive and negative effects on students’ feelings of safety, belonging, and preparedness, the report said.
“For some students, doing these drills makes them feel safer, but for others, it alerts them that there could be some type of impending danger,” said Celeste Malone, an associate professor of school psychology at Howard University, who sat on the panel and spoke to a web conference of reporters after the report was released.
Schools should adopt developmentally appropriate drills, panel says
Schools should adopt “trauma-informed, developmentally appropriate approaches to school active shooter drills,” involving educators, students, and the community in their design and implementation, the report said.
That could include tailoring language for younger students so it doesn’t spark fear and designing exercises with the needs of various groups—like students with disabilities and students with a history of trauma—in mind, the researchers said. Schools should also be selective about who participates in multi-option, or “run, hide, fight” drills, which may do more harm than good for some students, the panel said.
The panel also recommended that schools involve school nurses, psychologists, and counselors in their safety planning and in debriefing with students after a drill to monitor for signs of distress and collect information about how future exercises could be improved.
While the report does not include a prescriptive explanation of a proper drill, researchers did identify some harmful components, Justin Heinze, a panel member and associate professor of public health at the University of Michigan, told reporters.
Those include “hyperrealistic simulations,” which can include police officers firing blanks in hallways, and deceptive practices, like convincing students a real shooting is occurring instead of a drill. The panel recommended states prohibit both practices.
“Effective learning doesn’t typically take place when an individual is experiencing a high level of stress or anxiety,” Heinze said.
At the federal level, the panel called upon agencies including the Education Department, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to issue a national set of best-practice guidelines to help schools weigh existing research.
Researchers should further study the effects of drills, panel says
Research efforts on drills may have been hampered by restrictions on federal funding, the report said.
The so-called “Dickey Amendment,” which Congress kept in place from 1996 to 2018, prohibited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from using funds earmarked for violence prevention to advocate for gun control. While that provision did not explicitly prohibit research on gun violence and related issues, like school safety, it may have been interpreted as such by federal officials and researchers, creating a “chilling effect,” the report said.
“For more than two decades—spanning a period during which the number of school shootings markedly increased and these drills became routine—public health research on gun violence and related prevention strategies was significantly constrained,” the report said.
Research on drills can be difficult because studies require cooperation with local school districts, the experts said. And most existing studies don’t include elements of rigorous research design, like the use of a control group, because of ethical and practical constraints.
The panel called on research funders, including philanthropic groups, to fund more rigorous research that probes the drills’ effectiveness and effects on students and educators. That research should include uniformity and specificity in terminology to make it easier to compare findings across studies, the experts said.
