Advocacy

Reports from local children drew attention to the trauma caused by the drills — there were children who wouldn’t use the bathrooms or drink water in fear of getting left out of the classroom during a drill, kids with headaches, and students who avoided school. Through the networks of SOMA Justice, a local community non-profit started by the installation creator Dr. Khadijah Costley White, this group of community members worked together to help create child-centered lockdown drills policy that centered on both physical and emotional safety during drills. Recommendations included:

• Advanced notice of drills

• Care for the social and emotional well being of students during a drill

• Less drills

• Tabletop drills (which are lessons in which students learn what to do if there is an active shooter without acting it out)

• Reduced/eliminated police presence (in drills that involved kids)

• Limited drill duration

• Informing students that a drill was a drill at outset

• Notifying parents when a drill occurs

• Accommodating and taking care of children (so that no kids were left out alone and unsupervised during a drill, or that a child with disabilities or history of trauma was not harmed by sirens or being locked in a closet)

As a result, the SOMA school district passed an updated policy in 2019 that adopted several recommendations (though also leaving important measures out). The group continued to advocate both on the local and state level, adding their voices to more parents and groups nationwide raising concern about the impact of active shooter drills. They reached out to our state representatives, and two of us wrote an op-ed for the state newspaper about drills in the state that included the use of children in drills with lifeless bodies and police in swat gear, joining their voices in with others around the state. In 2022, Governor Phil Murphy signed a new state law for active shooter drills in schools in NJ that incorporated and expanded upon the policy already changed in SOMA.

Consider whether your local school district is even legally required to do the drills that it does.

Example: New Jersey law says that drills must happen during school hours, but students do not actually have to participate — students are not mentioned in the law or even the legislative intent (document that details what legislators intended to accomplish)

If school districts are exceeding what the law requires, they might provide you with a justification to argue against a particular drill practice

Recent articles from The New York Times, National Public Radio, Parenting, and The Atlantic detail research about how lockdown drills and realistic simulations are traumatic for children and possibly causing more harm than good. Andrew Yang and Bernie Sanders have even criticized how active shooter drills are conducted for this reason. Fear often drives safety considerations, not facts and evidence.

Examples:

• National Center for Education Statistics report suggests that by multiple measures, schools are actually getting safer, in terms of rates of nonfatal victimization of students aged 12-18 per 1,000 students from 1992 to 2016

• Per same source, the rates of homicides of youth ages 5-18 in school and school-associated violent deaths of students, staff, and other non-students have tended slightly downward from 1992 to 2015 — not increased, as some might believe

• Still, parents surveyed have increasingly said they’re afraid that their children’s schools are less safe

• Media coverage drives fear, generates resistance to plans for fewer and less intense school safety drills

• School security is a very profitable industry (estimated at $3 billion annually) — in their financial interest to stoke fear

• David Ropeik article in The Washington Post: estimates the risk of dying in a school shooting at 1 in 614 million — much higher odds than other dangers such as death by drowning or car accidents, yet we don’t drill for those risks in schools

Know the terminology and guidelines that your school district is using with regards to security drill policy, and be aware of any inconsistencies in definitions that might promote confusion. Evaluate whether or not you agree with these definitions, and why.

Cites Dr. Sarah Wakefield, member of her working group, who did a comprehensive literature review and developed key findings:

• There is a lack of rigorous evidence to justify any one training program or type of drill over another

• Poorly considered safety measures can generate fear and anxiety in students and negatively affect the climate within a school (which highly correlates with student safety)

• There is no rigorous evidence to support unannounced drills and realistic simulations; for instance, no evidence-based reason to announce that drills “are not a test” when they are

• Different children react differently to drills based on several variables (age, gender, prior exposure to violence, and mental and physical differences):
- Just because one child reacts well to drills does not mean that other do, as well
-Just because a teacher doesn’t see a child react badly to a drill in class doesn’t mean that child isn’t reacting badly at home (e.g., having nightmares, expressing fear of dying at school to parents)
- All policies should be student-centered and adjusted to protect children’s mental health

Cites Keeping Students Safe Everyday by Klinger and Klinger to stress that maintaining a good school climate is the greatest predictor of school safety — ensuring that a school is free of bullying, that students are well-cared for, that counselors are available to help students with mental health challenges

Draw recommendations from organizations including Everytown Research, Everytown for Gun Safety, the NEA, the AFT, National Association of School Psychiatrists (NASP), National Child Traumatic Stress Network, Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, ACLU, Council for Exceptional Children, National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO), and Safe and Sound Schools.

Serravallo recommends NOT involving children in drills altogether, in favor of training teachers how to act in case of an emergency and simply teaching kids to follow their children (based on Everytown Research, NEA, and AFT recommendations). She recognizes that it’s a hard sell politically, but is also based on her experience protecting her kids in Manhattan during 9/11; her kids listened to her with having any prior realistic drills.

If kids are going to be involved in safety drills, use vetted, developmentally appropriate methods for drills, and scripts for teachers so they know what to say that won’t scare children (based on Safe and Sound Schools, NASP, and NASRO recommendations):

• Know how to teach safety differently to kids based on their age

• Younger kids especially should not be involved in realistic roleplay

• Think of safety drills on planes — they don’t create a realistic plane crash simulation, they give you a briefing

• Safe and Sound Schools has a hierarchy of a progression for age appropriate safety training (introductions and orientations for younger kids, table-top activities and walk-throughs for pre-teens, pre-announced drills for older kids); does NOT recommend realistic drills for kids — reserve for law enforcement

• Before doing these drills, recommends notifying parents and obtaining passive or active consent from parents in advance
- That is, either notifying parents that kids will be participating and giving parents the opportunity to opt-out if it’s inappropriate for their children; or requiring active consent from parents to include their child

• Involve mental health and developmental psychiatry professionals in the planning of any lockdown drills — not just law enforcement, who don’t understand the difference of what it’s like for a 7-year-old to experience a drill versus a 12-year-old (NASP recommendation)
- Should be an assessment of pupil well-being after the drill/exercise; perhaps a letter/survey going home to parents
- If a child needs support, counselors should be available as an intervention

• Schools need to invest in establishing a great school climate (with counselors and anti-bullying resources), as that is the biggest factor that relates to school safety (U.S. Secret Service, Safe and Sound Schools, ACLU Cops and No Counselors report)
- U.S. Secret Service November 2019 report (Protecting America’s Schools) says that school shootings are still very rare, and establishing a safe school climate with a focus on student mental health is a more effective strategy than focusing on lockdown drills

• New guidelines are coming from NASO, NSRO, and AAP

Serravallo believes we’re on the cusp of a pendulum swing in the direction of fewer drills and more evidence-based preparedness strategies. For example, the state of Kansas recently cut their drill requirements in half because they realized that they might have been counterproductive.

The biggest pushback Serravallo’s working group got was based in fear of not doing enough preparedness, regardless of any evidence:

• Particularly with regards to advanced notification of drills; schools fear that parents won’t send their kids to schools of days with drills, despite evidence that advanced notification doesn’t negative affect attendance

• Also pushback on table-top exercises and other developmentally appropriate preparedness exercises versus drills; schools want drills

• Also pushback on not involving kids in drills; schools want kids involved, despite evidence suggesting it may be counterproductive
- Schools want demonstration that drills negatively affect kids’ mentally after the fact; not optimal strategy, preparedness exercises should be proactively developed with kids’ mental health in advance

Be thoughtful in who you engage with in school districts about revisions to school security policies, and in what order:

• Based on Serravallo’s working group experience, school mental health professionals are a good place to start (e.g., the district’s social worker), to explain motivations for the policy changes, discuss the evidence supporting those changes, and to solicit and incorporate the school mental health professional’s first-hand experiences and perspectives

• Individual school board members, to share research findings and recommendations based on those findings

• Public statements at school board meetings

• District superintendent

• President’s council of local PTAs

• Police and mayor

• Meetings with these groups and individuals helps you garner feedback about possible resistance to changes, and/or legal constraints to changes (which might require action on the part of legislators)

Public engagement is also important to educate the community on what they were trying to accomplish with these changes, and why:

• Working group did postings on social media to educate the community

• Organized petitions on Change.org to mobilize community support for changes

• Serravallo made a video interviewing local children, to feature their observations on how they felt about the drills and how drills affect them and their friends; showed the video to police, PTA, and mayor

• Important to center student voices in this kind of activism, to drive home the message of how they are affected