Experts: Lack of safety training standards puts students in danger

Nearly half of states don't require school safety training for teachers and staff, no uniform federal rules, either

Nearly half of states don't require school safety training for teachers and staff, no uniform federal rules, either

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Nearly half of states don't require school safety training for teachers and staff, no uniform federal rules, either

With an armed sheriff's deputy watching, a woman in a bright reflective vest unspooled the yellow caution tape across one side of the large room. There were stand-ins for greeters and parents, evacuated students and a unified incident commander.

More than 100 district and school administrators and staff, law enforcement and community leaders gathered at the Olde Dominion Agricultural Complex in southern Virginia for a two-day training session earlier this year to take part in a school reunification drill, practicing how to bring parents and their children back together after a shooting, chemical spill, natural disaster or other emergency on campus. The training was provided by the I Love U Guys Foundation.

"I felt that it was critical for me to be here today," Teresa Petty, assistant superintendent of Pittsylvania County Schools, said.

Sheriff Mike Taylor, who said he still remembers being unable to reach his then-college-aged son for hours after the shooting on the Virginia Tech campus in 2007, sought out the reunification exercise for his county after acknowledging the expertise "was just lacking for us."

With school shootings in the United States continuing to rise in frequency, law enforcement agencies and school districts in many other communities nationwide lack any basic reunification training to help mitigate what can be chaotic – and infuriating – experiences for traumatized families at the scene of an emergency, according to an investigation by the Hearst Television National Investigative Unit.

The bedrock responsibility of securing individual schools is largely unregulated at the federal level, Hearst Television has found, with no uniform requirements for school safety training or qualifications for companies hired by districts to train their employees.

Nearly half of the states – 24 – do not require any school safety training for teachers and staff, according to data collected in 2022 by the Education Commission of the States.

Jaclyn Schildkraut, the executive director of the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium at the Rockefeller Institute of Government in New York, co-authored the 2022 book "Lockdown Drills" and leads more than 100 safety drills for districts across the country each year.

Schildkraut, who dedicated her book to "Generation Columbine" – a growing number of kids "who have never known a world without lockdown or active shooter drills" – says every state should require trainings and drills – especially those that currently do not.

"If you're not providing training, if you're not providing opportunities to practice, then you're going to have more chaos when that emergency occurs," putting lives in jeopardy, Schildkraut said in an interview.

WATCH EXTENDED INTERVIEW: Jaclyn Schildkraut, Co-Author of new book "Lockdown Drills," discusses impact of gun violence on "Generation Columbine"

In Texas, state policy does require school staff training on suicide prevention and trauma-informed care, but doesn't go as far as some other states, according to the Education Commission of the States. Democratic state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, who represents the city of Uvalde, where a former student shot and killed 19 children and two teachers on May 24, 2022, introduced a bill in the current Texas legislative session to require coordinated training on how to react to school shootings. The bill would also create a mechanism to post a patrol officer at every campus.

In an interview at the now-shuttered site of the Uvalde massacre, Robb Elementary, Sen. Gutierrez admitted his bill is unlikely to pass in the Republican-controlled legislature. His voice broke and he became emotional, describing his frustration with what he described as the inaction of policymakers.

"This is the most important issue in this country," Gutierrez said. "There is no other – not inflation, not high gas, not even health care or anything. If you don't have your kid, there is no – there is nothing."

As the regular 2023 Texas legislative session comes to a close, other bills to provide hundreds of millions of dollars for physical hardening measures at schools have advanced.

WATCH EXTENDED INTERVIEW: State Sen. Roland Gutierrez (D-Uvalde, TX) on America's Mass Shooting Epidemic: ‘We Can Actually Stop It’

In an exclusive questionnaire about school safety sent by Hearst Television to every public school district in all 50 states, one out of every three districts that responded said they did not have any professional security on site, including from a district police department, sworn law enforcement agency or a school resource officer, as first reported in November.

Districts also named more than 130 organizations and companies they have contacted, or contracted with, for help with school security or training, from billion-dollar conglomerates to one-person consultancies. Many districts acknowledged the need to improve security but said they could not afford to do so without further local, state, or federal help.

READ THE FULL RESULTS FROM THE EXCLUSIVE QUESTIONNAIRE SENT TO SCHOOL DISTRICTS IN ALL 50 STATES

One of the entities cited often by districts in their questionnaire responses was the "I Love U Guys" Foundation. The Colorado-based nonprofit provides free, downloadable training guides and curriculum, along with multi-day workshops, such as the one in Pittsylvania County, in southern Virginia, earlier this year.

John-Michael Keyes, one of three co-founding members of the foundation, invited Hearst Television to observe the sessions. Keyes’ daughter, Emily, 16, died in a school shooting at Platte Canyon High School in Colorado in 2006. Her final text message to her parents was, "I love u guys." Those four words, Keyes said, gave him a purpose.

"She's part of the fabric of our story: 'I love u guys,'" Keyes said in an interview. "People learn really efficiently if there's an emotional hook, OK? And we set an emotional hook early on to enhance the training experience."

That "hook" involves trainers with past experiences with school shootings. Adjunct instructor Stacy Avila is a retired Colorado police officer and SWAT negotiator. She was assigned to negotiate with the gunman who took Emily Keyes hostage and ultimately killed her.

"I feel like I have a debt to the Keyes family that I can never repay. And, so, if I can do this to help their foundation, their cause, I will do anything I can because I wasn't able to save their girl," Avila said in an interview.

Mark Albert is the chief national investigative correspondent for the Hearst Television National Investigative Unit, based in Washington, D.C. Tamika Cody, Reid Bolton, David Postovit, Phil Dupont, Chris Petersen, MyAhna Alston, and Pingping Yin contributed to this report.

If you know of school security concerns you want us to investigate or unique district safety initiatives you’d like to share for our ongoing ‘Securing Our Schools’ investigation, please send confidential information and documents to the National Investigative Unit at [email protected] .

WATCH THE HEARST TELEVISION NATIONAL INVESTIGATIVE UNIT’S ONGOING SECURING OUR SCHOOLS SERIES: