PLAN, DRILL, REPEAT

TIPS FOR CONDUCTING SCHOOL SAFETY DRILLS, LARGE-SCALE MASS CASUALTY EXERCISES

Planning a mass casualty training exercise in coordination with local and/or county law enforcement and first responders is a massive undertaking for any school district. It’s important to include Research, Planning, Implementation and Evaluation into any drill or large-scale exercise to ensure its overall success.

Although Texas law requires that school districts conduct school safety drills annually, there is nothing that indicates a district must turn a drill into a multi-agency, large-scale training exercise.

Under current law, districts are required to conduct the following drills annually:

1. Secure drill --One per school year.

2. Lockdown drill --Two per school year (once per semester).

3. Evacuation drill --One per school year.

4. Shelter-in-place for hazmat drill --One per school year.

5. Shelter for severe weather drill --One per school year.

6. Fire evacuation drill-- Consult with your local fire marshal and comply with the local fire marshal’s requirements and recommendations. If a district does not have a local fire marshal, it shall conduct four per school year (two per semester).

Drills are the minimum requirement and all districts should comply. Large-scale training exercises can help create a greater culture of preparedness and identify weaknesses in communication protocols BEFORE an incident occurs. When developing plans for the active threat exercise, however, input from parents or guardians and students must be included. Texas Education Code 37.1141 requires access to mental health supports before, during, and after the exercise for all participants. It is vital that the planning team creates an exercise that is age and developmentally appropriate to the participants. For these reasons, many districts conduct such exercises in coordination with local first responders during the summer months when students are not present.

In addition, Texas Education Code 37.1141 requires a school district to give notice to parents and guardians in their native language, to the best of the district’s ability, before such an exercise is held. The notice must be posted to multiple distribution networks, including the district’s social media platforms, the district’s website, and more.

According to school safety experts, a drill is typically operations-based, and narrower in scope than an exercise. A drill is designed to help school employees practice specific tasks or protocols related to their role or function in the district. Texas law is clear that drills do not include persons role playing as active aggressors or other simulated threats.

Exercises, on the other hand, are broader in scope. These typically present a hypothetical emergency scenario (hurricane, earthquake, largescale terrorist attack, biochemical emergency, etc.) designed to encourage employees to problem solve, work together, and apply lessons they have learned from participation in mandatory drills.

According to planning materials provided by the Texas School Safety Center, exercises for emergency planning can be segmented into four specific types:

Operations-based exercise – A drill designed to validate procedures, clarify roles and identify operational process gaps.

Tabletop exercise – A roundtable type of session administered by a facilitator where team members meet to discuss their roles and share observations regarding a simulated emergency scenario. It’s designed to test each team’s ability to refer and react to its section’s role in the emergency plan as well as team members’ readiness to communicate with other teams as needed. These usually run a few hours in duration.

Functional exercise – An exercise whereby employees perform their duties in a simulated emergency environment, broken down into hundreds of individual “message inserts,” which simulate realistic problems that need to be addressed, and are observed in order to validate readiness. Functional exercises typically focus on specific team members and/or procedures, and are often used to identify process gaps associated with multi-agency coordination, command and control.

Full-scale exercise – Similar in execution to a functional exercise, this is as close to the real thing as possible and could include employees from multiple functions, community first responders, local businesses, and regulatory agencies. This type of exercise should utilize, to the extent possible, the actual systems and equipment that would be dispatched during a real event. From a duration standpoint, full-scale exercises often take place over the course of an entire business day.

(Source: Iverson 2002)

The time, resources and personnel to implement such a large-scale event successfully are often the biggest hurdles. School officials in Birdville Independent School District recently took part in coordinating an active shooter drill that included more than 300 community volunteers. Long-time TSPRA member Mark Thomas and his communications team helped Superintendent Dr. Gayle Stinson lead the communications effort. The event combined a simulated school shooting involving multiple victims at Richland High School with the district’s reunification process.

Members of the BISD Leadership Team created a command center and responded by implementing standard safety protocols and communications through a social media simulator. Although buses didn’t actually transport real students from RHS to BISD’s chosen reunification site, the large-scale training exercise and the debriefing with multiple agencies afterward helped Thomas and his team better plan and prepare should the unthinkable happen in their community.

In order to ensure a mass-casualty training exercise is successful, you might want to consider the following: 5 TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE CRISIS EXERCISE PLANNING

1. Establish clear and measurable objectives: Before you sit down with other agencies to plan for a mass casualty drill, first take the time to review your own Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) to ensure you have identified the specific goals and measurable objectives you want to achieve. Examples include testing staff response times, evaluating your communication protocols, assessing coordination between agencies, and identifying areas for improvement. Clearly defining measurable objectives before you take steps to host a training will help guide the planning process and ensure maximum impact for those involved.

2. Involve all relevant stakeholders:

Engage representatives from all agencies involved in the drill, including law enforcement, emergency management, school administration, teachers, and staff. Collaboratively develop a comprehensive plan that addresses the specific needs and concerns of each agency. Regular communication and coordination among stakeholders are crucial for a successful drill.

3. Conduct a thorough risk assessment:

Prior to the drill, conduct a detailed risk assessment of the school district. Identify potential vulnerabilities, such as entry points, evacuation routes, and areas of potential congestion. This assessment will help determine the specific scenarios to be simulated during the drill and ensure that the training addresses the most critical areas.

4. Develop a realistic scenario: Design a scenario that closely resembles a real-life situation. Consider factors such as the number of participants, location, time of day, and available resources. The scenario should challenge participants and test their ability to respond effectively. However, it is important to strike a balance between realism and ensuring the safety of all participants. If you find that you are not quite prepared for a full-blown training drill, you can start with tabletop exercises or planning sessions to identify the roles and responsibilities of each representative and agency under each scenario.

5. Evaluate and debrief:

One of the most important pieces of training after the actual exercise, involves a hotwash where participants conduct a thorough evaluation and debriefing session with all participating agencies. This time of evaluation is used to assess the strengths and weaknesses observed during the drill and identify areas for improvement. Encourage open and honest feedback from all participants to gain valuable insights. Use this information to update emergency response plans, refine training protocols, and enhance coordination between agencies.