Mike Tyson’s famous quote hits home in school safety. The 2021–22 school year saw 188 recorded school shootings, yet nearly every K–12 school conducts routine fire drills while averaging just two active-assailant drills per year. On paper, safety plans look thorough. In reality, performance under pressure comes down to what’s been practiced — and for most schools, practice stops far short of covering the situations they are most likely to face.

True preparedness means moving beyond a single-scenario mindset and creating a training culture that addresses the full range of emergencies: from severe weather and behavioral incidents to medical crises and reunification events. It’s about building muscle memory so that in the moment, every staff member knows exactly what to do.

Why Practice Outperforms Paper Plans

Research shows that rigorous, scenario-based training significantly improves execution under stress - and those gains can last for years. In one district, structured lockdown training measurably increased the number of “perfect checks” during drills, with improvements still evident four years later. The irony is that large-scale threats like active assailants make headlines, but the majority of incidents schools face are smaller in scope yet far more frequent.

On average, a school experiences one safety alert per week, and 99% of those involve staff-initiated medical or behavioral events. Nearly 60% happen outside of classrooms in hallways, cafeterias, parking lots, or athletic fields where standard fire-drill routines offer little guidance. Without frequent, varied practice for these scenarios, response times stretch, protocols break down, and lives can be put at risk.

The Hidden Gaps in Most Drill Programs

Many schools believe their current drill schedule is “good enough,” but gaps often appear on closer inspection. Annual calendars rarely balance full-scale drills with quicker, scenario-specific exercises. Legal requirements for non-fire drills vary by state, and more than 40 states now mandate some form of lockdown or safety exercise — yet compliance often lags because those mandates aren’t widely understood. Coordination with first responders, mental-health professionals, and community partners is inconsistent, and plans rarely account for the needs of students with disabilities, language barriers, or trauma sensitivities.

Bridging these gaps requires deliberate design: mapping risks, choosing the right mix of drill types, and ensuring that every exercise is both inclusive and realistic.

Six Scenarios Every School Should Train For(minimally)

A comprehensive drill program should prepare staff and students for six primary categories of emergencies. Lockdown and active-assailant drills must balance realism with age-appropriate, trauma-informed methods - announced walkthroughs for younger students, more complex scenarios for older grades. Shelter-in-place training should cover severe weather and hazardous material events, with clear safe-zone procedures and utility shut-off protocols.

Evacuation planning must go beyond the front door, mapping both primary and secondary routes and practicing them under different conditions, including peak hallway congestion. Medical response drills - whether for CPR/AED use, allergic reactions, or severe bleeding - need to be rotated so staff gain confidence in each skill set. Behavioral incident response should include de-escalation practice, “room clear” procedures, and safe restraint protocols where permitted. Finally, reunification planning ensures that after an incident, families can be quickly and safely reconnected with students, using designated sites and ID verification processes.

Building a Year-Round Training Calendar

The most effective programs use a layered approach. Short “micro-drills” lasting 5–10 minutes can be woven into the week in varied locations, building familiarity in spaces where emergencies are most likely to occur. Quarterly tabletop exercises give leadership, school resource officers, and emergency services a chance to work through decision-making together. Once a year, a full-scale, multi-agency drill should simulate a complete event cycle — for example, moving from a lockdown into evacuation and finally reunification.

At ProtectED, we help schools map these calendars to their real-world risk profile, ensuring the right scenarios are practiced at the right frequency.

Making Drills Safe, Supportive, and Age-Appropriate

Preparation should never come at the expense of student well-being. That means communicating with caregivers ahead of time, using clear, plain-language announcements to avoid confusion, and offering debrief sessions with counselors afterward. These steps are especially important in communities where trust and transparency build confidence in the process.

Coordination and Compliance

Drills work best when every stakeholder uses the same language, radio channels, and expectations. Coordination with law enforcement, fire, EMS, and 911 dispatch ensures that on the day of a real emergency, no one is improvising. Staying compliant with both state law and accreditation standards means revisiting requirements regularly, as mandates for non-fire drills continue to evolve across the Southeast.

Measuring Readiness

A plan’s effectiveness should be measured, not assumed. After-action reviews, data on response times, and incident mapping help identify weak points before a real crisis exposes them. Over time, trends in these metrics should guide changes in both protocols and training schedules, ensuring the plan evolves with the campus’s needs.

Ensuring Inclusion and Accessibility

Preparedness is only real when it works for everyone. That means mobility accommodations, sensory-friendly adjustments, and multilingual resources built into every drill and communication. It also means including emergency basics in onboarding for substitute teachers and new staff, so no one on campus is ever unprepared.

The Takeaway

Fire drills are important, but they’re just one piece of the safety puzzle. From medical events to behavioral crises to large-scale emergencies, every scenario deserves attention and practice. Schools that design multi-hazard, trauma-informed training programs and measure their results move beyond compliance into true readiness.

ProtectED helps schools create these programs, working with existing resources and tailoring each element to the realities of the campus. The result is a plan that doesn’t just sit on a shelf, but lives in the muscle memory of every adult and student on site.