An open letter to Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran

Dear Commissioner Corcoran,

In the interest of school safety, I ask that your offices look into streamlining standard operational procedures for the state mandating active shooter drills for schools in districts throughout the state. A standard approach would ensure a universally understood protocol that would allow all stakeholders to feel confident in any location during an emergency. Historically speaking, we have proven that emergency drills can be standardized. We have seen this done with tornado drills, earthquake drills, and fire drills. Why would we then not prepare ourselves for possible human-made emergencies as we would for natural disasters? 

Progress on gun violence prevention policy has been slow at the federal level. I believe that instead of focusing on the more extended target of legislative change, we should be focusing on creating guidelines provided by the state for individual districts to follow. There should be a standard statewide approach to enable schools across the state to manage active shooter threats. Students may stay in one region their entire academic career, or they may move within two, three, or four. The same goes for educators, administrators, and support personnel. I believe having a standardized approach created with the input of all stakeholders in the state of Florida could restore confidence to students and teachers alike. Confidence in knowing that no matter what happens, having the ability to help themselves and each other knowing what they should and should not do during one of these disasters.

At present, each school district in the state has taken its approach for developing and implementing district-wide school safety plans and emergency response procedures. They also go so far as to identify those individuals within the district responsible for those policies. The mission of the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE) is to establish a framework through which the department will prepare for, respond to, recover from, and mitigate the impact of significant emergencies that would adversely impact the health, safety, and general welfare of DOE employees (FLDOE, 2013). Emergency management seems to fall under the finance and operations structure of the department of education. The district safety and security best practices on the FLDOE website describe the methods along with their associated indicators. The forms presented are from the 2013-2014 school year, emphasizing protocols and procedures put into place, no doubt in response to the December 2012 Sandy Hook Massacre. Since that time, an estimated 269 cases of school shootings have been reported in America; that is an average of about one school shooting per week (Miller, 2016). These disasters hit very close to home with no warning, and school shootings have damaging long-term impacts on the school community as a whole. A recent analysis of school shootings found that those involving fatalities resulted in reduced student enrollment in the affected schools and negatively affected student performance. Recovery after these types of disasters has yet to be quantified since no one knows the long-time effects of how these tragedies will impact this generation of students.

I do believe that a statewide push for standardization of emergency preparedness within education for events such as active shooter threats provide overall uniformity. The result, improving strategies and performance in the event of an actual disaster. Overall, lessening the effects of gun violence in our schools and saving lives.

Florida Department of Education (FLDOE) Emergency Management. (2013). District Safety & Security Best Practices. Retrieved October 9, 2019, from http://fldoe.org/finance/emergency-management/dis-safety-security-best-practices.stml.

Miller, H. (2016). There Have Been Over 200 School Shooting Incidents Since Sandy Hook. Retrieved October 9, 2019, from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/school-shootings-since-sandy-hook_n_58503d99e4b04c8e2bb232eb.

Mass Shootings in America, 2009 to 2017. (2018). Retrieved October 9, 2019, from https://everytownresearch.org/reports/mass-shootings-analysis/.