Our Kids Deserve Better

Active shooter drills aren’t the answer

In this week’s podcast episode, Amanda gets emotional as she talks to Gen Z activist, Sam Schwartz, about the fear school children have around school shootings. And let’s be honest, many of us and our children can relate to this fear.

What a lot of people don’t know, is that active shooter drills perpetuate this fear.

Active shooter drills are implemented in over 95 percent of American K–12 schools even though evidence suggests that they are causing lasting emotional and physical harm to students, teachers, and the larger community.

Consider this story from a Florida teacher.

Think about that. Light up shoes on a five year old caused his classmates to panic because they thought it would lead an active shooter to find them. 

Active shooter drills in schools are associated with increases in depression, stress and anxiety, and physiological health problems according to a study conducted by Everytown and the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Social Dynamics and Wellbeing Lab (Georgia Tech). 

We know that the United States experiences more school shootings than nearly all other nations, and while school shootings account for less than 1 percent of annual US gun deaths, each school incident leaves a lasting effect on the local community and the nation. 

It’s tragic and traumatizing for all of us.

After all, schools are intended to be safe spaces for children to grow and learn. How are they supposed to do that if they’re constantly on high alert for an active shooter and regularly preparing for it? 

These drills typically require students and school staff to stay quiet in a designated area, lock the door, and turn off the lights. Even more alarming than that, sometimes these drills include tactics such as fighting back, distracting the shooter, and evacuating. Most drills are announced ahead of time but there have been instances where they are unannounced and simulate an actual active shooter event. 

At least 40 states require these drills today. 

For-profit companies charge school districts thousands of dollars for these training sessions, making the active shooter drill industry worth an estimated $2.7 billion. People are making money off of a practice that doesn’t make children safer but instead has been proven to traumatize children even more.

Researchers found that active shooter drills threaten the wellbeing of entire school communities over prolonged periods of time, leaving those who are affected in need of continued support to process their aftermath. They also found that active shooter drills in schools may be forcing children and teens to confront their own mortality at a much younger age and much more often than when drills were less commonplace. 

This is why organizations like Everytown, the American Federation of Teachers, and the National Education Association do not recommend active shooter drills for students.

To learn more about active shooter drills, listen to The Cost of Extremism podcast episode about The Impact of Active Shooter Drills in Schools.

Our kids deserve better.