Stop the Fear Factory: A Plea from an Expert

New York state's recent ban on realistic lockdown drills is a significant victory - a step toward much-needed reform in how we conduct safety drills. I sincerely hope this change marks the beginning of a larger effort to ensure that drills nationwide are both practice and trauma-informed. This topic is especially close to my heart, as someone who has spent the last four years earning a doctorate in school-based gun violence and the last two years as a Joffe Safety Consultant. Fifty-four years of documented school shootings teach us that we must embrace research, learn from real-life scenarios, and advocate keeping our students physically AND emotionally safe. 

Lockdown drills are required in over forty states, yet there is considerable variation in their execution. You may have heard of Run Hide Fight, Avoid Deny Defend, A.L.I.C.E. training, or the Standard Response Protocols. All of these programs are mission-aligned in that they prepare staff and students for the worst-case scenario. However, besides having differing philosophies and implementation practices on how to keep students physically safe (both during actual scenarios and during practice), I’m increasingly concerned by the lack of alignment and focus on how to keep students psychologically safe as well.  

In my role as a national school safety consultant, I’ve learned that drills with students do not need to be realistic to be effective. For example, in 1851, the NYT reported on a tragic incident where forty students died during a fire drill evacuation in Greenwich, even though no fire was present. This historical example highlights that our reaction to emergencies can have serious consequences, when when no real danger exists. Similarly, modern fire drills, which avoid adding realism such as simulated smoke, focus on practice without inducing fear. We don't simulate smoke in the air vents for fire drills; why terrify students with fake "intruders"? The focus of drills should be on muscle memory, not fear.

Studies have shown that using realism in lockdown drills can actually increase the perception that school is an unsafe place to be, undermining the goal of creating a safe learning environment. We have also seen the consequences of drills not being conducted properly and students being physically injured in the process, like a 2019 drill conducted at a middle school in New Richmond, Ohio, that resulted in two students needing medical attention because of confusion of policies. 

So, how can we balance safety and emotional safety as a community? By returning to the root objective of a school emergency drill: to create muscle memory so that your body knows what to do when that initial moment of crisis sets in. 

Steps for Safer, More Effective Drills

1. Parental Notification- This starts with notifying parents before drills happen. Encourage age-appropriate conversations at home about safety at school. We are raising a generation of advocates with unlimited access to knowledge. If we do not have these conversations with our students, then they will find it somewhere else, and it may not be what was intended.
2. Student Orientations- The onus is on the school to conduct age-appropriate orientations with the students on what a lockdown drill is and what the steps are to stay safe when on campus. At one of my preschools in Beverly Hills, we ask our students to be ninjas because they are brave, quiet, and excellent at hiding. This reaches the same conclusion without saying there is a scary man with a gun outside. You could also use a swarm of bees or a moose on the loose as an analogy for what we are trying to hide from.
3. Practice without Fear- A best practice we teach at Joffe is that everyone practicing should always know it’s a drill. The most common pushback is, “we feel like telling people it’s a drill will make them take it less seriously.” Our job as administrators and consultants is to meaningfully explain the “why” behind drills to encourage everyone involved to thoughtfully practice. 

New York’s decision to ban realistic lockdown drills is a positive step- one that I applaud and hope other states follow. We will continue to work together to prepare students for emergencies without instilling fear and trauma.