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Active shooter drills have become the norm in schools across the United States, but experts warn they can potentially cause more harm than good.
Although these exercises aim to prepare students to respond to gun violence in their schools, there is little evidence to prove their effectiveness, experts told ABC News, days after two people were killed in a shooting at a Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin.
However, they can cause significant damage to mental health and even serve as an instruction manual for potential school shooters, according to some experts.
“There is too little research confirming the value of [drills] involving students — but the evidence of their lasting harm is mounting,” Sarah Burd-Sharps, senior director of research at the gun violence advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety, told ABC News.
More than 95% of public schools in the United States have trained their students in containment procedures to use in the event of an active shooter incident, a number that has increased significantly since the early 2000s, according to a U.S. department report. of Education of 2017. At least 40 states have laws requiring these exercises, according to data collected by Everytown.
Children participate in active shooter training at Pinnacle Charter School in Thornton, Colorado in 2019.
ABC News
Despite their ubiquity, there are few standards governing how these exercises should be conducted, Burd-Sharps said. As a result, practices can vary widely, she said. In some schools, training may consist of basic instruction in containment procedures. Others, however, went further, simulating a real-life active shooter scenario with sounds of gunfire or even school staff members posing as shooters.
Training of this type can be deeply traumatic for students and have a negative impact on mental health. A 2021 study by Burd-Sharps and others, which looked at 114 schools in 33 states, found about a 40% increase in anxiety and depression in the three months following the exercises.
The effects may be particularly pronounced among students with pre-existing mental health conditions and those with personal experience with gun violence, such as those who regularly hear gunshots in their community or who have survived a previous shooting, a Burd-Sharps said.
Miami-Dade schools police officers conduct a rescue operation during a “large-scale functional active shooter drill” at a high school in Miami, Florida, August 14, 2023.
Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images
Rebekah Schuler, a 19-year-old Students Demand Action leader who survived the 2021 Oxford High School shooting in Michigan, said she and her classmates didn’t take the exercises very seriously. active shooter until the attack that killed four students and injured seven others.
After the shooting, many of her classmates transferred to schools that held their own active shooter trainings, she said. Many found the exercises traumatic, she said, and some reportedly had panic attacks.
“I didn’t know the severity of them, but after the shooting they were traumatic on a different level,” Schuler told ABC News of the drills.
Advocacy groups like Everytown, as well as Sandy Hook Promise — the nonprofit created by the families of the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shooting — are pushing for stricter guidelines for shooting drills which serve to better prepare school communities while avoiding negative effects.
In a report, Sandy Hook Promise recommended guidelines for these trainings, including requiring them to be announced in advance, allowing students to opt out, and requiring regular reviews of practices.
The organization has strongly pushed against simulated shooting, which it says can traumatize participants and risk physical injury, without improving the effectiveness of the exercises. It’s a position that Burd-Sharps and other experts say is crucial to conducting safer training.
“No fake bullets, no fake blood, janitors dressed as gunmen. It’s deeply traumatic,” she said. “And it’s not only traumatic for the children, it’s also traumatic for the teachers.”
A kindergartner crouches under a table during active shooter training at Pinnacle Charter School in Thornton, Colorado, in 2019.
ABC News
Although few laws govern the conduct of these trainings, some states have begun to take measures to limit the most hyper-realistic practices. In July, New York state banned drills to realistically simulate shootings, and guidelines issued by the Kentucky Department of Education recommend avoiding “dramatic crisis simulations.”
Active shooter drills can also carry another sinister risk: serving as a model for future school shooters on how to circumvent security measures when planning their own attack. For example, Natalie Rupnow, the alleged shooter at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, was a student at the school.
“Because 3 out of 4 school shooters are current or former students, by training several times a year you give a potential shooter a road map of what will happen during an active shooter incident,” Burd-Sharps said, citing a 2016 New York Police Department report.
Experts recommend focusing training efforts more on teachers than students, and focusing more efforts on prevention strategies, particularly convincing parents to lock up their guns and teaching students who they can reach out safely if they observe concerning behavior among their peers.
“When these drills combine with the shootings kids see on TV all the time and the lockdowns in response to new incidents, it’s actually not surprising that many American schoolchildren are in crisis. The last thing what they need is additional trauma from exercise several times a year,” Burd-Sharps said.
“There is absolutely a better way,” she added.