How to Develop Emergency School Lockdown Procedures

Emergency lockdown procedures for a school involve keeping students safely inside if an outside threat hampers the progress of an evacuation. Lockdowns should only be conducted if completely necessary. You want to avoid creating further havoc in the midst of a breach of safety, so develop a plan with methodical precision.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• Police or security person
• Emergency contacts
• Additional door keys
• Hand radios
• Tables and desks
• Action steps for lockdown
• Facilities maps

1. Create an emergency lockdown plan. This can be a segment of your overall emergency communications plan. Include action steps to lock down the school. Create site maps detailing the entire layout of the school's building before you proceed.
2. Make up an emergency decision diagram. This is a flow chart containing a series of boxes with questions about the crisis and the safety of various locations. The answers to the questions guide you to what to do next, such as lockdown or evacuate.
3. Educate all school personnel about the emergency lockdown procedure and how to act in that situation. Instruct employees on how to lock the doors and provide them with additional keys. Bring in a local police officer or security expert to conduct a seminar about lockdown procedures.
4. Proceed with a lockdown. After alerting security personnel and emergency officials, lock all the exterior doors. Each wing of the school will need a person responsible for locking the doors. This will be planned out beforehand with site maps given to all employees.
5. Cover windows of classrooms if there is a need for this type of protection. Use desks, tables and jackets or whatever you can find. Provide different communications options for staff to contact those outside the school.

Tips & Warnings

• A lockdown procedure also takes place if a crisis occurs inside the school where moving within the building would put students and staff at harm.
• Your facility's site maps should include every part of the building. In addition to the main offices and classrooms, account for stairwells, side entrances, hallways, bathrooms and any other small space.
• Provide hand radios for school staff to help the flow of communication and get through any power failures that might occur.
• Keep students and others calm during a lockdown procedure. Reassure them about the situation and that help is on the way.