New York Bans Realistic Active Shooter Drills

CNN
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New York, home to the nation’s largest school district, is banning realistic shooter drills. It follows years of activism by parents and lawmakers who say the drills traumatize children, normalize violence and do little to prepare students for the remote possibility of a school shooting.

New rules unanimously drafted and approved this month by the New York State Board of Supervisors require schools to use “trauma-informed” and “age-appropriate” methods during drills and ban the use of actors, props or tactics that depict violence when school is in session.

The change is the culmination of a years-long effort by parents, advocates and lawmakers to make school drills less traumatic for students while balancing the need for parents to ensure their children are prepared for America’s ongoing epidemic of gun violence.

Lockdown drills have become commonplace in schools across the country. Forty states require the drill, according to data collected by Everytown for Gun Safety. While There is not enough data to show how many schools are conducting realistic drills with actors and props. Some New York parents believe the state requires too many drills from a young age, leaving children anxious, traumatized and fearful of being a victim of a shooting.

Robert Murtfeld, a Manhattan father of two elementary school children, told CNN he became alarmed when he heard of young children practicing active shooter scenarios. He became even more concerned when he heard of a parent whose child came home and started bolting windows and doors, thinking a bad person was coming into the house.

“About a month later, that same five-year-old asked his parents what would happen if a bullet went into his body,” Murtfeld said. “Why is a five-year-old thinking about this instead of thinking about learning math and English?”

In a major victory for parents and advocates of the change, rules approved by the Board of Regents now also require schools to give staff and students advance notice of planned drills, in addition to giving parents a week’s notice. The Regents set education policy for the state’s school districts, including New York City Public Schools, the largest in the U.S. with more than 1 million students.

While Murtfeld understands there are concerns about gun violence, especially in places where gun laws are not as strict as New York, he says data shows the chance of a child being involved in a school shooting is quite small.

“Since Columbine 25 years ago, three generations of students have suffered from this,” Murtfeld said.

Experts like Sarah Burd-Sharps, senior director of research at Everytown For Gun Safety, agree. She says a deep culture of fear has emerged in the era since the Columbine High School shooting, leaving parents, students and teachers feeling like they “have to take action” in the absence of meaningful gun control.

Burd-Sharps said there isn’t enough research yet to support the value of drills with students or evidence to show that they help protect the school community. But there is growing evidence that drills can cause lasting harm to young people, leaving them with fear and trauma, and the normalization of gun violence.

“As a parent, I absolutely share the desire to keep schools safe, but what I would say is that while the number of incidents is extremely low, we are raising a generation of school children who have been shaped by our gun violence epidemic, and drills are just a reminder of this crisis,” Burd-Sharps said.

According to data collected by Everytown for Gun Safety, there will be at least 118 incidents of gunfire on school grounds in 2024, on track to double the number from 10 years ago. But despite the rise in gun violence across the country, school shootings are still relatively rare, accounting for less than 1% of the more than 44,000 annual U.S. firearm deaths, the data shows.

“There is absolutely no reason for these kinds of exercises,” Burd-Sharps said. “The exercises do not make it more likely that they will understand or respond to something better. It just makes it more likely that it will traumatize them.”

Burd-Sharps says it’s better to focus on training staff on how to respond and implementing other safety measures, such as locking doors and windows. Additionally, it’s important for schools to know how to implement crisis intervention and provide support and resources to students who may be isolated.

Stella Kaye, 17, a survivor of two shootings at her Denver high school, says the active shooter drills didn’t really prepare her for the real thing.

“This is us just sitting in the corner pretending that something is happening and pretending that this is going to do something in the event of a real emergency,” said Kaye, a member of the Students Demand Action National Organizing Board and vice president of the Denver East High School Students Demand Action chapter. “For a lot of people in the real emergency, that’s not what’s happening.”

The new rules will go into effect next school year. All New York schools, including non-public schools, will still be required to conduct at least eight evacuation drills and four lockdown drills per school year.

Efforts to limit lockdown drills are expected to continue during the upcoming legislative session in Albany. Parents are hoping a bill will pass that would lower the minimum number of drills from four to two, further limiting students’ exposure to active shooter drills and building momentum for similar rule changes across the country.

Democratic Sen. Andrew Gounardes, who is sponsoring the legislation, said he hopes the law and recent rule changes will create momentum for similar changes in schools across the country.

“Four is still too many,” said Gounardes, who represents parts of Brooklyn. “It normalizes a culture of violence and school shootings that we shouldn’t be normalizing.”