Teachers question whether active shooter drills are causing more harm than good

TAMPA, Fla. - “Lockdown, Lockdown. Lock the door. Shut the lights off, Say no more.” That’s the start to a song sung to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” at one Somerville, Massachusetts school. 

It’s one of many examples of school safety tactics cited in a report released by two of the country’s biggest teachers unions just ahead of the two-year mark of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas mass shooting. In it, educators and mental health professionals call on school districts to rethink active shooter drills. 

The American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, and the advocacy group Every Town For Gun Safety say active shooter drills are causing stress and anxiety for students and there’s little evidence the drills actually save lives. 

Instead, the AFT, NEA and Every Town say these drills are doing more harm than good. 

“What these drills can really do is potentially trigger either past trauma or trigger such a significant physiological reaction that it actually ends up scaring the individuals instead of better preparing them to respond in these kinds of situations,” said Melissa Reeves, former president of the National Association of School Psychologists. 

According to Every Town, about 95-percent of schools in the U.S. practice some form of active shooter or lockdown drill with students, some beginning as early as pre-school. The drills are often led by privately contracted companies, and without state or national content guidelines, they can vary widely from school to school. 

The group points to a drill at Meadowlawn Elementary School in Monticello, Indiana, where law enforcement officers lined teachers up and “shot them” with an airsoft rifle. 

“They shot all of us across our backs. I was hit four times. It hurt so bad,” said teacher Arika Herron.

Other schools have conducted surprise drills with look-alike shooters that have scared both students and staff, or staged scenes with students lying in fake blood. 

The report warns about the effects of these drills: stress, anxiety, panic attacks, and even young children who’ve soiled themselves in school. 

“It’s psychologically distressing for a young child to practice active shooters coming into your area. It’s not clear to them that the drill is not real,” said Dr. Laurel Williams, chief of psychiatry at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. “The younger the child, the less likely they are to understand that an act of violence is not occurring during a drill.”

As a result, the AFT, NEA and Every Town say the drills are only appropriate for teachers and staff, not students.  

“Our organizations do not recommend training for students and firmly believe that schools must be very mindful of the impact of active shooter drills that involve students and take that into consideration when designing such programs and determining whether to include students.” 

The group said if schools are going to continue to train students in active shooter drills, they should adhere to a few basic guidelines. 

• The drills should never simulate or mimic an actual shooting. 
• Parents, educators and students should be given advance notice of any drill. 
• Districts should work with mental health officials to create age-appropriate and trauma-informed drills. 
• The effects of these drills should be tracked by schools so that administrators have a better understanding of any trauma caused. 

The group says they want schools to focus more on preventative strategies to curb mass casualties: comprehensive school safety plans, investing in mental health counseling and increased social support, training staff —not students— on how to respond to an active shooter, as well as meaningful gun violence prevention policies within the community.