You Don't Need More Drills, You Need Better Drills
A school can complete every required emergency drill on the calendar and still learn very little about whether its plans will hold up when conditions become complicated. That is the central problem many K-12 leaders face. Schools run lockdown drills, evacuation drills, shelter drills, and fire drills throughout the year, but compliance alone does not prove preparedness. What matters is whether each drill teaches the school something useful.
That is why the right conversation is not just about doing more drills. It is about designing better drills. A stronger school drill tests more than routine movement. It tests communication, backup decision-making, accountability, support for students with disabilities, campus areas outside the classroom, and whether corrective actions actually get fixed before the next exercise.
National school data help show why this matters. During the 2023-24 school year, 97% of public schools reported that they had conducted or planned to conduct lockdown drills, 95% evacuation drills, and 95% shelter-in-place drills. Among schools conducting those exercises, 43% reported holding lockdown drills three or more times during the year, while 70% reported three or more evacuation drills. Schools are already practicing at high rates. The better question is whether those drills are building real capability.
The strongest approach is to treat drills as part of a broader preparedness system. Schools should define what each exercise is meant to test, observe performance intentionally, debrief quickly, assign corrective actions, and re-test important fixes. When that happens, a drill stops being a routine event and becomes evidence that the school is learning.
Table of Contents
1. Start Every Drill With a Clear Objective
The simplest way to improve school drills is to ask one question before the next exercise begins: What are we trying to learn? That one step changes the value of the entire event.
A traditional lockdown drill may answer a very basic question: can classroom teachers lock doors, turn off lights, move students out of sight, and maintain quiet? That is worth testing. But if a school has practiced the same routine repeatedly, it may already know the answer. Better drills go further.
They ask whether the cafeteria can implement the action. They ask what happens during passing period. They ask whether substitute teachers understand the protocol. They ask whether students with mobility, sensory, behavioral, or communication needs can be supported effectively. They ask whether the gym hears the notification, whether staff outside the building know what to do, and whether administrators can initiate the response quickly if the usual leader is unavailable.
That approach lines up with established exercise design principles. FEMA's Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program emphasizes defining exercise objectives before the exercise is designed, because objectives guide the scenario, observation, evaluation, and corrective actions that follow (FEMA school EOP guide). Schools do not need to turn a short drill into a federal exercise. They do need to borrow the core idea.
A better drill always has a purpose beyond completion. A lockdown drill might test backup notification. An evacuation drill might test an alternate assembly area. A shelter drill might test whether staff can account for students when normal communication is disrupted. A reunification exercise might test role clarity at family check-in.
Practical rule: every drill should answer a question, not just satisfy a requirement.
School leaders looking to strengthen that approach can also review School Safety Solutions' approach to building prevention, protection, and preparedness and connect those ideas to their drill and exercise program.
2. Stop Running the Same Drill the Same Way
Repetition has value. Students and staff should become familiar with protective actions so those actions feel clear and manageable under stress. But repetition can also create predictability, and predictability limits learning.
If everyone knows the lockdown drill is Thursday at 10:00, teachers can review the procedure five minutes before it begins, the principal can make the announcement, and everyone can perform exactly what they expected to perform. The administrator walks the hall, checks doors, ends the drill, and the school moves on. The problem is that ideal conditions rarely teach much after the first few repetitions.
A better drill changes one reasonable condition while keeping the process safe, controlled, and age-appropriate. Conduct the drill during lunch. Try it while one grade level is outside. Have the normal initiating administrator unavailable so the backup has to act. Test a secondary notification system. Position observers in different parts of campus. Include after-school staff or transportation personnel in a discussion about how the same protocol applies in their setting.
The goal is not surprise for its own sake. It is not to scare students or create confusion. The goal is to test whether the plan still works when conditions are less than ideal, because real emergencies almost never happen when everyone is seated quietly in their assigned classroom.
This is where schools can gain a lot without adding more drills. They can take the drills they already conduct and make them work harder. Instead of repeating the same perfect-condition exercise, they can vary one condition at a time and learn more from every event.
3. Focus on Operational Realism, Not Frightening Realism
When people hear the phrase "more realistic drill," they sometimes imagine theatrical elements like simulated gunfire, fake injuries, actors pretending to be attackers, or screaming. That is not what better school drills require.
A drill can be operationally realistic without becoming emotionally harmful. Operational realism means testing real conditions the school may actually face. The PA system cannot be heard in one part of the building. A class is outdoors. A substitute is teaching. An exit is unavailable. The principal is off campus. A student needs mobility assistance. Communication with central office is delayed. The preferred evacuation location cannot be used.
Those are real operational problems. They force people to think, communicate, and adapt. They test systems without creating unnecessary fear. The U.S. Department of Education's guidance stresses that exercises and drills should be age-appropriate and tailored to the needs of the school community. The purpose of practice is to build competence and confidence, not to make the event more dramatic.
A useful standard for schools is simple. If the added condition helps test the plan, it may have value. If it mainly adds fear, spectacle, or stress, it probably does not.
4. Test Adults Differently From Students
Students and staff do not need exactly the same kind of exercise. Students need age-appropriate opportunities to practice protective actions. Adults have broader responsibilities that often go untested when every exercise is limited to a classroom drill.
Teachers, administrators, office staff, transportation teams, counselors, and support personnel may need to make decisions, initiate emergency actions, account for students, communicate with first responders, manage reunification, support students with disabilities, and operate within Incident Command responsibilities. Those functions are difficult to test if every exercise is only students and teachers carrying out a protective action for a few minutes.
That is why schools should think in terms of an exercise program, not just a drill calendar. The Department of Education recommends an exercise continuum that can move from discussion-based activities like tabletop exercises to operations-based activities like drills and functional exercises (FEMA school EOP guide). Different exercise types answer different questions.
A classroom drill may test whether students and teachers understand Lockdown. A staff tabletop may test what a teacher should do if the announcement occurs while the class is outside. A leadership tabletop may test notification, command, parent communication, law enforcement coordination, and district decision-making. A functional exercise may test whether communications, technology, transportation, administration, and other departments can execute parts of the Emergency Operations Plan under pressure.
Each exercise should be matched to the people and responsibilities involved. That is how drills begin to build capability instead of just familiarity.
5. Stop Measuring Drill Success by Speed Alone
Time matters in emergencies. Schools do need to know how quickly they can initiate protective actions. But speed by itself is not enough.
A school may proudly report that it locked down the building in 45 seconds. That can be useful information, but it does not answer other critical questions. Did everyone receive the message? Did exterior areas know what to do? Were all students accounted for? Did classrooms implement the protocol correctly? Did administrators establish command? Could staff communicate if necessary? Were visitors addressed? Were students with disabilities supported appropriately? Did the response create another safety problem?
A fast response performed incorrectly is not necessarily better than a slightly slower response performed correctly. Better drills measure more than the stopwatch. They measure communication, accountability, role performance, decision-making, and whether the plan produced the intended outcome.
That approach is consistent with FEMA's exercise evaluation framework, which encourages organizations to identify capability targets and critical tasks, then collect observations against those objectives (FEMA school EOP guide). In practical K-12 terms, schools should evaluate how well, not just how fast.
Simple observation systems that improve every drill
Many schools already have administrators walk the halls during drills. That is helpful, but observation becomes much more valuable when observers know exactly what they are looking for.
A simple one-page observation sheet can make a major difference.
What were we testing? Define the objective clearly before the drill starts.
What happened? Record what actually occurred, not what was supposed to occur.
What worked? Identify strengths worth keeping.
What created difficulty? Note barriers, confusion, communication gaps, or physical issues.
What needs follow-up? Capture items that require review, correction, or re-testing.
That structure turns hallway checks into actual evaluation. It also helps schools collect information that can improve the next exercise instead of just documenting that this one happened.
6. Drill the Places Where the Plan Is Hardest
Most emergency plans look strong in a conference room. Real campuses are more complex. Some environments are simply harder during emergencies, and those are the spaces drills should test more intentionally.
The cafeteria, gym, playground, athletic fields, portable classrooms, buses, career and technical education spaces, large common areas, special education settings, after-school programs, athletic events, arrival, dismissal, and passing periods all present challenges that may not appear in a simple classroom drill.
If a plan says, "During a Lockdown, everyone should move into a lockable room," what does that mean for 150 students in the cafeteria? If a plan says, "Evacuate to the designated assembly area," what happens if that area cannot be used? If the plan says, "Account for students," what happens during passing period or after school?
Good drills challenge the portions of the plan that seem simple on paper but become difficult in practice. That does not mean putting students in unsafe situations. In many cases, adult tabletop discussions are the best first step. Once the school has worked through those problems conceptually, the appropriate portion can be incorporated into a safe drill.
A helpful campus practice is to conduct a supervision and vulnerability review before setting the yearly drill schedule. Identify where procedures are hardest to execute, where communication is weakest, and where accountability is most difficult. Then use those findings to choose what the next drill will actually test.
School leaders can also connect this work to School Safety Solutions' approach to building prevention, protection, and preparedness so drills reinforce the broader safety system rather than sit apart from it.
7. Involve First Responders and Community Partners Early
Schools do not manage major emergencies alone. Law enforcement, fire, EMS, emergency management, district departments, and other community partners all play a role. Yet in some schools, these partners first encounter the campus procedures during a real incident. That is far too late.
Exercises provide a practical way to build those relationships before they are needed. Federal school safety guidance encourages schools to work with community partners to clarify responsibilities, assess available resources, and improve coordination. Not every fire drill needs the fire department, and not every lockdown drill needs law enforcement. But over the course of the year, community partners should participate somewhere in the broader exercise program.
A tabletop exercise is often the easiest place to start. Ask law enforcement what information they would need immediately. Ask fire what access problems they see on campus. Ask EMS where casualty collection or treatment could become difficult. Ask emergency management how the school plan connects to larger community response systems.
Exercises should test more than the school in isolation. They should test how the school connects to the system around it. That is often where important weaknesses surface.
For districts that want to formalize this kind of coordination, School Safety Solutions' work on reporting, reunification, and safety coordination is a useful reference point for turning planning into practice.
8. Turn Every Drill Into Improvement and Re-Testing
A drill should not end with "good job" and a return to normal. It should end with learning.
Every drill should include some form of debrief. For a simple exercise, that may take only a few minutes. Ask staff what worked, what was confusing, what they noticed, what would have made the response easier, and whether anything happened that the plan did not address. For larger exercises, use a more structured After-Action Review.
This is where schools can gain significantly more value without adding a single additional drill. If each exercise produces meaningful improvements, the school is steadily correcting real weaknesses before those weaknesses matter during an emergency.
The next step is turning findings into assignments. If the gym cannot hear the announcement, do not simply note "communication issue." Assign Facilities and Technology to test PA coverage, identify a corrective action, set a deadline, and verify the fix during a future drill. If substitutes did not understand emergency language, improve substitute orientation and then re-test that issue. If student accounting took too long, change the process and measure it again.
This closes the loop:
Plan -> Train -> Drill -> Evaluate -> Improve -> Re-test
That cycle is where drill quality starts to matter more than drill quantity. It is also consistent with FEMA's emphasis on specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound corrective actions tied to improvement planning (FEMA school EOP guide).
A practical school process should include:
An issue: What problem did the drill reveal?
A corrective action: What will be changed?
An owner: Who is responsible?
A completion date: When should it be done?
A verification step: How will the school confirm the fix worked?
Without those pieces, schools often repeat the same problems year after year. At that point, they are not practicing preparedness. They are practicing the problem.
8-Point Better Drills Comparison
Approach | 🔄 Implementation complexity | ⚡ Resource requirements | 📊 Expected outcomes | 💡 Ideal use cases | ⭐ Key advantages |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Start Every Drill With a Clear Objective | Low, requires planning discipline before each exercise | Low, brief planning time and objective setting | More useful drills, stronger evaluation, clearer learning | All required drills and exercises | Ensures every drill answers a meaningful question |
Stop Running the Same Drill the Same Way | Moderate, requires variation and scheduling flexibility | Low-Moderate, observers and simple coordination | Better testing under non-ideal conditions | Repeated lockdown, evacuation, and shelter drills | Prevents predictability and improves realism |
Focus on Operational Realism, Not Frightening Realism | Moderate, requires age-appropriate design choices | Low-Moderate, planning and staff communication | Stronger performance without unnecessary fear | K-12 campuses concerned about drill climate | Tests real constraints while protecting student well-being |
Test Adults Differently From Students | Moderate-High, requires an exercise continuum | Moderate, tabletop time, leadership participation, role clarity | Better decision-making, coordination, and command performance | District leaders, administrators, ICS roles, reunification teams | Aligns exercise type to real adult responsibilities |
Stop Measuring Drill Success by Speed Alone | Moderate, requires better evaluation criteria | Low, observation forms and debrief time | More accurate understanding of performance quality | Any campus relying too heavily on timing metrics | Shifts attention from speed to capability |
Drill the Places Where the Plan Is Hardest | Moderate, requires vulnerability-based planning | Moderate, site-specific coordination and supervision | Fewer blind spots in challenging campus spaces | Cafeterias, gyms, buses, dismissal, special programs | Tests the parts of the plan most likely to fail |
Involve First Responders and Community Partners Early | Moderate, requires outside scheduling and collaboration | Moderate, partner time and tabletop planning | Stronger coordination and clearer external roles | District-wide planning, major incident readiness | Builds relationships before an actual emergency |
Turn Every Drill Into Improvement and Re-Testing | Moderate, requires follow-up ownership and verification | Moderate, corrective action tracking and repeat testing | Continuous improvement, fewer repeat problems | Schools seeking long-term preparedness gains | Converts drills into measurable organizational learning |
Build a Drill Program, Not Just a Drill Calendar
There is a big difference between a drill calendar and an exercise program. A drill calendar tells you when required drills will happen. An exercise program explains what the school intends to learn and improve over time.
A calendar may say September lockdown, October evacuation, November shelter. A real exercise program asks deeper questions. What did last year's drills identify? What capabilities still need improvement? Which staff need additional training? Which parts of the Emergency Operations Plan have not been tested? What conditions have changed? Which community partners should participate? Which drill should validate the last corrective action?
That is a more mature way to approach school preparedness. Compliance still matters, but compliance should be the floor, not the ceiling.
A simple implementation checklist can help school leaders put this into practice.
Define the objective: Identify what each drill is meant to test.
Vary one condition: Move beyond ideal circumstances in a safe, age-appropriate way.
Use trained observers: Give them clear questions and a simple evaluation form.
Test adult responsibilities: Use tabletops and functional exercises, not just student drills.
Debrief immediately: Capture strengths, confusion, and unmet needs right away.
Assign corrective actions: Name an owner, a deadline, and a way to verify the fix.
Re-test important findings: Use the next exercise to confirm improvement.
The practical takeaway is simple. Schools do not necessarily need more drills added to an already crowded calendar. They need the drills they already conduct to produce better learning. Define the objective. Test something that matters. Observe intentionally. Debrief honestly. Fix what did not work. Then test it again.
That is how a school moves from practicing to becoming more prepared.
School and district leaders who want help strengthening drill design, exercise planning, observation tools, tabletop exercises, after-action review, reunification planning, or broader emergency preparedness can contact School Safety Solutions at 512-387-6729, info@schoolsafetysolutionsllc.com, or schoolsafetysolutionsllc.com to discuss training, assessment, planning, or exercise needs.
School Safety Solutions helps K-12 leaders build better drills, stronger exercise programs, clearer corrective actions, and more reliable preparedness systems. If your team wants support with training, assessment, planning, or tabletop exercises, visit School Safety Solutions to discuss next steps.
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