“Today, your child’s school will have an active shooter drill.” This seemingly simple sentence has become a source of contentious debate across the United States in recent years. Despite the rarity of mass shootings occurring at school, approximately two-thirds of parents of teenagers express worry about a school shooting, according to Pew Research. This worry has manifested into fierce demands that schools “do something,” and school administrators and security leaders have responded by implementing a wide range of security measures including, but not limited to, tightening access control, installing security cameras, and employing of school resource officers. However, schools have most often developed and introduced lockdown drills, with 96% of schools utilizing drills during the 2017-2018 academic year.
However, one fundamental question remains: What is a drill?