There have been 63 school shootings – meaning any time there is gunfire on a school campus – so far in 2026.
They happen so often that preparing for one has become normal. Students as young as 4 years old routinely practice for the possibility of a school shooting with lockdown drills – typically, hiding in the corner of a dark classroom, behind a locked door.
Pauls Valley High School in Pauls, Oklahoma, went into lockdown on April 7, 2026, after an armed gunman fired shots inside the building. Kirk Moore, the school’s principal, tackled the gunman and got shot in the leg.
The lockdown and Moore’s heroism clearly prevented any further violence in this rare school shooting situation with a positive ending. But by and large, do lockdowns typically work to keep students safe?
As a criminologist who studies violence and mass shootings, I think it is important to keep in mind that there are no federal requirements guiding how often, or even how, lockdown drills should be conducted across schools in the U.S.
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Different approaches to lockdowns
Most states have some sort of requirements for a minimum number of lockdown drills a year. In Minnesota, the number is five. New York mandates four, while Arizona law calls for three.
There’s also a lot of variation in how schools interpret the term “lockdown drill.” In some places, it’s used loosely to cover a range of situations – everything from a medical emergency to an animal loose in the building. But that broader usage can obscure what these drills are actually designed for.
In practice, lockdown drills are synonymous with preparing for an active shooter or similarly serious threat of violence. That’s why many people refer to them directly as “active shooter drills.”
Guidance from the I Love U Guys Foundation reinforces this point. Its widely adopted Standard Response Protocol defines a lockdown as locking doors, turning off lights, staying out of sight and remaining silent – measures intended specifically to maximize time and distance from a violent intruder until first responders arrive.
In 2025, Minnesota, where I live, passed the first law in the country that defines an active shooter drill as a form of lockdown, and distinguishes it from an active shooter simulation.
A drill, in this law’s context, “means an emergency preparedness drill designed to teach students, teachers, school personnel, and staff how to respond in the event of an armed intruder on campus or an armed assailant in the immediate vicinity of the school.”
That is different from an active shooter simulation, which incorporates “sensorial components, activities, or elements mimicking a real life shooting.” The law says that students can be mandated to participate in the former, but not in a simulation, where you might have crisis actors involved or the sights and sounds of a real tragedy.
Based on my research, any drill must be conducted in a measured, age appropriate and trauma-informed way, so children are not harmed by the practices. There is a difference between a teacher calming walking students through the procedure, versus having a police officer in tactical gear pounding on the door or jiggling the handle to check if it is locked.
Unclear effect on kids
Most schools started doing lockdowns after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012 and at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in 2018. This is the first generation of students who have practiced what to do if a school shooter comes to kill them – and they have been practicing since pre-K. We don’t yet know what that does to a person over a lifetime.
So far, the available research shows mixed evidence on whether these drills help students feel more prepared or whether they scare them. Studies looking at the mental, emotional and behavioral health outcomes of school active shooter drills tell us that there are short-term gains of reduced fear when drills are carefully designed, and that they do build procedural knowledge that can reduce panic. At the same time, research has captured heightened fear, anxiety and other trauma responses to these drills, especially among children and staff that already have developmental disabilities or have trauma histories.
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Lockdown drills have limits
Most school shooters are current or former students at the school. They know where kids hide because they themselves were trained in lockdown response. The shooter at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis in 2025 even wrote in their journal about how active shooter drills were “useful” because of the lessons they learned from them.
Another issue is that drills tend to assume a single type of scenario, even though school shootings can unfold in very different ways. Practicing for only one eventuality could unintentionally put students in greater harm. The 2022 Uvalde School shooting in Texas is a good example. Children were placed behind a locked door, but then the shooter was in the room with them and murdered them all. The better response, in hindsight, would be to evacuate the building.
More than anything, I think there is a risk that drills normalize school shootings. We have handed school safety to teachers and students with the lights off. Hiding presupposes a seeker. Even young children understand the logic of hide-and-seek (someone is looking for you, and if they find you, you lose). Drills cast students as prey being hunted. That reality alone is a tragedy for American society.
