Properly implemented school lockdowns have been successfully used to protect students and staff for more than 100 years.  From a teacher preventing an armed aggressor from entering a Danbury, Connecticut in 1900 to more recent events, school lockdowns have successfully protected people from danger for many years.   Our clients often relate successful application of school lockdowns such as a case where an apparently dangerously mentally ill man opened fire in a high school parking lot in Henderson North Carolina in the mid-1970’s.  This instance occurred just two weeks after the school conducted a lockdown drill.  The man was killed in a gunfight with responding law enforcement officers but was unable to gain access to the school.

While properly implemented school lockdowns have been preventing tragedy for more than a century, many school staff are still not being properly trained and practiced.  In addition, school lockdown protocols are often poorly developed.  For more information on lockdown concepts that can be unreliable, we have developed a free web seminar.  This blog will focus on a few simple steps that can dramatically improve the reliability of school lockdowns: 

• Regular staff and substitutes must be issued a key to be able to implement a lockdown.

• Teaching with the classroom door locked is a practice we have been recommending to our clients for more than a decade.  This concept dates back at least to the early 1990’s and not only enhances security but can reduce lost time on task because teachers become less prone to give out hall passes.

• Requiring staff to keep their room keys on their person can dramatically reduce the time it takes for staff to implement a lockdown.  While it can be helpful to have classroom doors that can be locked from the inside, long delays from staff trying to find their keys can dramatically reduce the benefits of such improvements.

• Staff should be practiced in making the decision to lockdown their own work area and advising the office to secure the rest of the school independently.  Drills requiring individual staff to make these types of decision can dramatically improve decision-making and reduce fear. 

• Training and drills should emphasize the need for appropriate types of lockdowns (preventive or “soft” lockdowns) when signs of danger are detected.  Focusing only on scenarios where shots have been fired or where someone is brandishing a gun can easily result in missed opportunities to implement a lockdown before an aggressor produces a weapon.  Our experience has been that the vast majority of situations where lockdown is appropriate at a school do not start out with shots being fired or someone brandishing a gun. 

We have now run more than 5,000 one-on-one controlled crisis simulations and have found these to be highly important aspects for more reliable school lockdowns.  Though not intended to be an all-inclusive list, addressing these key points can significantly improve reliability of school lockdowns.

It was an absolute joy to work with the staff from the Phoenix Country Day School and the Phoenix Police Department last week.  The school is a truly first-class independent school and the Phoenix Police Officers who work at the school each day were consummate and dedicated professionals.  The school has been staffed by Phoenix Police Officers for more than two decades and has worked diligently to provide a warm, caring, and safe environment over the years.   While we were able to offer a number of suggestions to further enhance school safety, security and emergency preparedness, the current safety efforts of school staff and the Phoenix Police Department were already truly impressive.

I have had the pleasure to work with a number of the nation’s finest independent schools and was deeply impressed with the thoughtful long-term approach to safety at this school.  I am also grateful that both school and police personnel were so eager to learn new ways to improve upon the many successful safety strategies they have implemented over the years.  It was truly an honor and a pleasure to visit this beautiful school and to work with a team of true professionals. 

A while back, I came up with an analogy that a number of folks have told me has been helpful to them. I thought it might be useful to share it here.  It can be easy for people who have not had the experience of being threatened or attacked with a weapon to have unrealistic expectations.  For example, for more than a decade, we have been posing scenarios for school employees and asking them to either verbally walk us through what they would do to address the scenarios or to physically demonstrate for us in real time what they would do. 

We have found that it is quite common for school staff to be unable to secure their work area rapidly when we do this with a scenario that would require a lockdown.  For example, just in the past few months, I have encountered many school office staff and classroom teachers who were not able to properly implement a lockdown in less than 30 seconds when posed with scenario where it is clearly appropriate for them do implement a lockdown.  In a number of instances, I have timed school staff who took more than 90 seconds to secure their work area.  These same school employees have typically participated in several or more lockdown drills in the current school year but are unable to perform the basic steps to accomplish a lockdown fast enough to protect themselves and others if an armed person were in close proximity.

When I keynote or work with clients, I have had good success with the submarine door analogy to help explain how dangerous these delayed reactions can be.  I simply ask what would happen if the crew of a submarine did not close the door to the sub until they had submerged to a depth of 100 feet.  The obvious answer is that the submarine would sink.  In the same manner, school staff who are not prepared to make, communicate, and implement the decision to lockdown in the first critical seconds of an act of violence will be more prone to implement protective actions too late to protect people.  While the analogy resonates best with most people for lockdown situations, it is equally applicable for medical emergencies, fires, tornadoes and other potentially life-threatening situations.

This simple analogy has helped many people better understand how fast staff must be able to react in a life-threatening situation.  I have had excellent feedback on this analogy.  As soon as we get a chance, we will be developing a free online video using the submarine analogy in concert with our new book Staying Alive – How to Act Fast and Survive Deadly Encounters.  I will post a blog to announce this free resource once we have it on the web site.  In the meantime, this analogy may be helpful in your efforts to improve school safety.