The state with the largest school district in the nation bans realistic active shooter drills

By CNN Newsource

Published July 27, 2024 11:12 AM

By Gloria Pazmino, CNN

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

New rules outlined and approved unanimously by the New York State Board of Regents this month will require schools to use “trauma informed” and “age appropriate” methods in drills and bans the use of any actors, props, or tactics depicting violence when school is in session.

The change follows a multiyear effort by parents, advocates and lawmakers to make school drills less traumatic for students, as well as an effort to balance parents’ need to feel like their children will be prepared to respond if exposed to America’s ongoing epidemic of gun violence.

Lockdown drills have become commonplace in schools across the nation. Forty states require the practice, according to data collected by Everytown for Gun Safety. While there is not enough data to show how many schools perform realistic drills by using actors and props, some parents in New York believe the state requires too many drills starting at a young age, resulting in children who are anxious, traumatized and afraid they will become victims of a shooting.

Robert Murtfeld, of Manhattan, a father of two elementary school age children, told CNN he became alarmed when he learned young children were drilling for active shooter scenarios. He became even more concerned after hearing from a parent whose child had come home and started locking windows and doors, thinking a bad person was going to come inside the house.

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

In a major win for parents and proponents of the change, the rules approved by the Board of Regents also will now require schools to notify school staff and students about planned drills ahead of time, in addition to notifying parents a week in advance. The Regents set educational policy for the state’s school districts, including New York City Public Schools, the largest in the US with over 1 million students.

While Murtfeld understands concern around the issue of gun violence, especially in places where gun laws are not as strict as they are in New York, he says data shows the likelihood of a child being in a school shooting is quite low.

“Since Columbine 25 years ago, three generations of students have been subjected to 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 began to develop in the post Columbine High School shooting era, forcing parents, students and teachers to feel like they needed to “take action” in the absence of significant gun control.

Burd-Sharps said there is not enough research yet to confirm the value of drills involving students or evidence to show they help protect the school community. However, evidence is mounting the drills can have lasting harm on young people, leaving them to deal with anxiety and trauma as well as the normalization of gun violence.

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

According to data collected by Everytown for Gun Safety, there have been at least 118 instances involving gunfire on school grounds in 2024, on track to double what it was 10 years ago. But despite the increase in gun violence across the country, school shootings are still relatively rare and account for less than 1% of the more than 44,000 annual US gun deaths, according to the data.

“There is absolutely no reason for those types of drills,” Burd-Sharps said. “The drills do not make it more likely that they will understand or respond better to anything. It only makes it more likely that it will traumatize them.”

Focusing on training staff on how to respond and adding other safety measures such as locks on doors and windows is a better way to respond, in addition to ensuring schools know how to implement crisis intervention and provide help and resources to students who may be isolated, according to Burd-Sharps.

Stella Kaye, 17, a gun violence survivor of two school shootings at her high school in Denver, said the active shooter drills she’s experienced didn’t actually prepare her for the real thing.

“This is us just simply sitting in a corner pretending like something is happening and pretending like this is going to do something in the event of an actual 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 actual emergency, that is not what occurs.”

The new rules will go into effect in the upcoming school year. All New York schools, including nonpublic schools, will still be required to conduct a minimum of eight evacuation drills and four lockdown drills every school year.

The push to limit the number of lockdown drills is expected to continue in the upcoming legislative session in Albany, where parents are hopeful a bill to reduce the minimum number of drills from four to two will be passed into the law, further limiting students’ exposure to active shooter drills, and creating momentum for similar rule changes around the country.

Democratic state Sen. Andrew Gounardes, who is sponsoring the legislation, said he is hopeful the bill and the recent rule changes will create momentum for similar changes in schools around 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 should not be normalizing.”