April 2022 School Safety Blog
The recent added language to the regular . The new language seems to have caused a bit of confusion. Let’s take a quick look at school safety drills.
Schools have been doing safety drills for decades. Drills prepare students and staff to respond to a wide variety of threats and hazards. Staff and students need to know and practice these responses so they can be used in case of real emergency situations. Drills are essential; they help familiarize staff, students, and visitors in a school building with procedures, announcements, processes, and signals so that if there is a real emergency, there will be no hesitation or confusion in the response.
In Washington, schools are required to practice four basic functional responses to threats or hazards: lockdown, evacuation, shelter-in-place, and drop-cover-hold on. Some districts and schools might modify the wording they use around their drills, but they all come down to these 4 basic functions.
It is important to understand that safety drills are a specific type of preparedness exercise. Preparedness exercises fall into two categories: 1) discussion-based exercises which include such activities as scenario discussions, Tabletops, or seminars, and 2) operations-based exercises.
Discussion-based exercises are great for furthering understanding and preparation. They can be adapted to staff meetings, classroom lessons, planning with first responders, PTA nights – any time there is an opportunity for safety-related conversations.
Under the operations-based category, there are three types of exercises:
- Drills: coordinated, supervised exercises that generally practice a single, specific action or function. Keep in mind that drills build muscle memory.
- Functional Exercises (FE): similar to drills but involve other (1st responder) partners in a more realistic situation.
- Full-Scale Exercises (FSE): real-time reenactments, creating a stressful, time-constrained environment that closely mirrors real events.
FE and FSEs are often thought of as drills for first responders.
The new adds wording that says: “Lockdown drills may not include live simulations of or reenactments of active shooter scenarios that are not trauma-informed and age and developmentally appropriate.”
Schools are required to practice drills. prohibits the use of full-scale functional exercises (FSEs) as part of the regular monthly drills. Although the bill specifically mentions lockdown situations, full-scale functional exercises should be considered prohibited for any and all regular monthly drills.
Drills are still required. Lockdown drills are still required. Full-scale exercises, live simulations, or reenactments are not drills, are not required, and in fact, are prohibited by HB 1941.
To be most successful, ensure that all required drills:
- Are well planned and pre-taught,
- Announced,
- Communicated to families,
- Trauma-informed,
- Age and developmentally appropriate,
- Documented, and
- Debriefed.
If there are any questions, please visit the OSPI page, or contact the OSPI School Safety Center. You can also contact the at each of the nine Educational Service Districts (ESDs).