Exercises provide a low-risk environment to test capabilities and familiarize staff, faculty, students, and community partners with their roles and responsibilities in the school’s Emergency Operations Plan (school EOP). They also strengthen efforts to prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from threats and hazards facing the school. Exercises may be discussion-based, like workshops, seminars, and tabletop exercises. Exercises can also be operations-based, like drills, functional exercises, and full-scale exercises. Drills are used to validate a specific capability in the school EOP, provide training, or practice skills. Schools conduct drills specific to their EOP, like evacuation, lockdown or shelter-in-place, accounting for people, communications, reunification, continuity of operations, recovery, security, and public, medical, and mental health.
Related Resource(s)
- Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program Guidelines
- Texas School Safety Center, Training, Drilling, and Exercising Toolkit
- DHS Campus Resilience Program Exercise Starter Kits
