Emergency Management: Improved Federal Coordination Could Better Assist K-12 Schools Prepare for Emergencies
Released: 2016-04-11T00:00:00

Letter

Background

Federal Role in Emergency Management Planning for Districts and Schools

State and local laws and requirements continue to guide districts and schools when planning for and managing emergencies. The federal government’s role in school emergency management has been to support state and local activities, by providing guidance, training, equipment, and funding to help districts and schools respond to emergencies effectively. DHS is responsible for most federal emergency management programs, including some that allow funds to be used for school emergency preparedness. In fiscal year 2015, DHS awarded $989 million to states, urban areas, and territories to prepare for and respond to terrorist attacks and other disasters.

Since our 2007 report, the federal government has taken additional steps to help districts and schools plan for and manage emergencies. In March 2011, the White House issued Presidential Policy Directive 8, aimed at strengthening the security and resilience of the United States through systematic preparation for the threats that pose the greatest risk to the country’s security. It also directed DHS to develop, in coordination with other federal agencies, a national preparedness goal that identifies the core capabilities necessary for preparedness and a national preparedness system to guide activities to achieve that goal.

In response to the directive, DHS released in September 2011 the National Preparedness Goal that identified capabilities to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from threats and hazards. The Goal defined success around these five mission areas, which occur before, during, or after an incident (see fig. 1). The Goal recognized that preparedness is a shared responsibility of the whole community, which FEMA, as a component of DHS, notes includes schools, among others. As stated in the Goal, threats and hazards may include acts of terrorism, cyberattacks, pandemics, and catastrophic natural disasters.

In January 2013, following the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the White House developed a plan, Now is the Time, to protect children and communities from gun violence which called, in part, for all schools to have comprehensive emergency operations plans (see fig. 2). This plan also directed Education, DHS, HHS, and Justice to release a set of model, high-quality emergency operations plans for schools by May 2013.

Federal Agencies Provide Resources to Support School Emergency Management Planning, but Some Resources Are Often Underutilized and Efforts Are Not Strategically Coordinated

Federal Agencies Provide Various Resources to Help Schools Prepare for Emergencies, but Most School Districts Reported Not Using Federal Guidance and Other Non- Financial Resources

Education, DHS, HHS, and Justice each provide assistance to school districts and schools with preparing for emergencies. In response to the President’s call for model, high-quality emergency operations plans for schools, among other things, in his 2013 plan to reduce gun violence, the federal agencies jointly developed a Guide for Developing High-Quality School Emergency Operations Plans (Federal Guide)—the primary federal resource designed to help schools develop, implement, and revise their emergency operations plans. The Federal Guide, which identifies key planning principles for developing school emergency operations plans, states that it is considered informal guidance and schools and school districts are not required to adopt it. These principles include considering all threats and hazards and all settings and times, and call for following a collaborative process when creating and revising a plan.

The Federal Guide suggests that schools use a six-step planning process, similar to the process established by FEMA for state and local emergency management planning, to develop, maintain, and revise their emergency operations plans. According to Education officials, this represents a shift in guidance from an emphasis on plan content to an emphasis on the planning process (see fig. 3).

Education, DHS, HHS, and Justice also separately develop and provide resources such as guidance, training, technical assistance, and funding, in line with their respective missions, to help districts and schools prepare for emergencies. These include resources that directly support emergency operations plan development as well as those that more generally can be used to enhance districts’ and schools’ ability to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, or recover from threats and hazards (see table 1).

Despite the availability of resources from Education, DHS, HHS, and Justice for school emergency preparedness, our nationally representative survey of school districts found that an estimated 69 percent of districts did not rely on non-financial resources from any of these agencies to develop or implement their plans in recent years. Further, as shown in figure 4, we estimate that about one-third of districts or fewer relied on such resources from the agencies individually.

Our survey of school districts and visits to districts and schools suggest that limited awareness of federal non-financial resources and reliance on local resources may be factors in districts’ limited use of such federal resources. For example, based on our survey, an estimated 37 percent of districts are aware of the Federal Guide or related resources from the REMS TA Center. Similarly, officials in 2 of the 12 schools we visited were familiar with the Federal Guide, though it is targeted to schools. In one school we visited, an official who was familiar with the Federal Guide told us that it was not user-friendly given its length (e.g., 67 pages). In addition, officials in two districts said they rely on their state for guidance, rather than on the federal government directly, as, for example, some federal standards and guidance may not be as tailored to them. According to our survey of state educational agencies, 35 states, representing a majority of school districts, provide the Federal Guide to their districts to assist in developing or implementing emergency operations plans. With this number of states doing so, it is unclear why there is limited awareness of the Federal Guide by districts nationwide.

Federal Agency Collaboration to Support School Emergency Preparedness Is Ongoing, but Gaps Exist

Education, DHS, HHS, and Justice collaborate on a number of individual agency initiatives to support district and school efforts to prepare for emergencies. According to federal officials, following the significant interagency collaboration required to produce the Federal Guide in 2013, as facilitated by the Office of the Vice President and National Security Council, Education has continued to collaborate with the agencies to develop resources to facilitate use of the Federal Guide, including by leading development of a related guide for school districts. Education and the agencies also developed resources that, though not necessarily explicitly prepared as an emergency preparedness resource, can be used to assist schools with other aspects of emergency preparedness, including prevention. For example, Education and Justice jointly developed a school discipline resource package designed, in part, to assist schools in creating safer environments, which can be an important step for prevention. Federal agency officials also told us they collaborate through various groups that address, to varying degrees, certain needs of schools and school children. For example, several agencies participate in the Comprehensive School Safety Initiative interagency working group, and a federal interagency policy sub-committee on active shooters, though this entity is not specific to schools and does not address the full range of threats and hazards schools face. Some agencies are also involved with the National Advisory Council on Children and Disasters. However, none of these entities primarily focus on the needs of schools for emergency management planning, which, given the presence of young children, can differ significantly from those of other institutions. Federal officials told us the partnerships that resulted from the Federal Guide have been valuable: one official said federal interagency collaboration is the best she has experienced in her 18 years with her agency.

However, we identified gaps in recent federal agency coordination that suggest these efforts are insufficient in fully addressing the needs of schools. Insufficient coordination may compromise the ability of federal agencies to effectively support district and school emergency preparedness efforts, and risks hindering such planning to help protect students and staff in emergencies. We found:

Not all relevant federal agencies are included in collaboration efforts. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials said the agency is not involved in federal interagency collaboration on school emergency management planning, including with the REMS TA Center, despite TSA having developed multiple resources on school transportation security, and knowing through its Baseline Assessment for Security Enhancement program that security for school bus transportation is often left out of district planning. Additionally, TSA officials told us they were also not involved in developing the Federal Guide because they were unaware of the effort—even though DHS, of which TSA is a part, was one of the agencies involved in developing the Federal Guide. Due to their lack of involvement in federal interagency efforts for school emergency management planning, other federal agencies may be unaware of TSA resources and unable to share TSA information with local stakeholders. Recognizing the importance of addressing transportation in school emergency management planning, the Federal Guide makes multiple references to it. Moreover, the REMS TA Center has elaborated on the importance of addressing transportation in planning, stating in informal guidance that effective emergency operations plans must include procedures for students and staff to follow during non- instructional times, including time when students are on a school bus. Leading practices on interagency collaboration state that it is important to ensure that all relevant participants have been included in the collaborative effort.

Relevant agency officials are not always aware of each other’s efforts and resources, including within their own agency. Education and FEMA officials said they collaborate on various school emergency management planning initiatives. For example, Education officials said that FEMA was among its federal partners involved in developing a REMS TA Center tool designed to help districts and schools create and customize emergency operations plans, and the head of FEMA’s Emergency Management Institute (EMI) told us that staff provide such tools to their training participants. However, EMI officials we spoke with who are responsible for training courses for district and school staff on developing emergency operations plans said they were unfamiliar with these tools, raising concerns about communication and coordination within the agency. In another case, a FEMA official responsible for the Office of Counterterrorism and Security Preparedness, to whom we were referred by FEMA officials we interviewed about issues of coordination with DHS, said his office was not involved in the development of related guidance from DHS’ Office of Infrastructure Protection issued in April 2013 on developing a comprehensive K-12 school security program, which discusses how to develop an emergency operations plan. Further, the official indicated that he was unaware of the DHS guidance until its release.

As a result, officials from DHS and FEMA were simultaneously involved in developing multiple resources for K-12 schools—including the Federal Guide, issued in June 2013—to prepare for emergencies without sufficiently coordinating these efforts. In reviewing the DHS guidance, we also found it makes no specific mention or reference to FEMA’s six-step planning process—the process on which the Federal Guide is based—though it includes a number of the same steps. Gaps in effective coordination and communication within and across agencies raise questions about the efficient use of resources, and the extent to which these related resources may be overlapping, duplicative, or fragmented. Officials from Education and FEMA told us greater collaboration is needed and welcome, particularly in light of limited resources. Leading practices state that the challenges posed by continuing federal budget constraints call for agencies to work together more closely to leverage limited resources to achieve their missions.

Agencies that collaborate offer different interpretations of the same federal guidance. Education and the FBI were partners, among others, in producing the Federal Guide; but, since its completion, these agencies now publicly offer different positions on the Federal Guide’s Run, Hide, Fight model. This model describes—in order of preference—the steps adults should take when confronted by an active shooter (see sidebar). Specifically, an Education official said in producing the Federal Guide the federal agencies agreed to exclude students from involvement in the option of fighting an active shooter and instead included language that focused solely on adults. In contrast, an FBI official stated that the Federal Guide is designed to allow each community to determine whether to discuss with high school students the option of fighting, and set its own standards on how to discuss the Run, Hide, Fight model with school- age children—views which have been reported publicly. The FBI official also said the goal of the Federal Guide is not to develop a one- size-fits-all plan, but rather, to have district officials, principals, teachers, parents, and local first responders decide what is best for their community. The FBI official stated that, though student involvement in the option of fighting is not included in the Federal Guide, the FBI does not take a position on whether or not school districts should teach children to consider the option of fighting. In addition, the official told us the FBI’s position aligns with Federal Guide and noted that adults should consider the option to fight and be trained accordingly. Given that the Federal Guide explicitly refers only to adults when discussing the fight portion of Run, Hide, Fight, conflicting views from federal agencies may create confusion for districts and schools in interpreting this aspect of the federal recommendations. Leading practices on interagency collaboration state that it is important to address the differences created by diverse organizational cultures to enable a cohesive working relationship and create the mutual trust required to enhance and sustain a collaborative effort. Education and FBI officials told us they meet regularly with other federal partners through a federal interagency policy sub-committee on active shooters, facilitated by White House staff; however, their collaboration through this mechanism—which is not exclusively focused on school emergencies—has not yielded a consistent federal message to the public about whether and how students should be involved in Run, Hide, Fight.

In the absence of a well-coordinated strategy for school emergency management planning efforts, federal agencies have taken a piecemeal approach to these efforts, which contributes to the gaps we have identified. Education officials said that, especially since the issuance of the Federal Guide, federal agencies currently face challenges around coordination, resulting in efforts that have developed organically and incidentally and without a strategic focus. Specifically, with their limited resources, agencies determine their priorities and initiatives—and the resources devoted to them—on an individual agency basis; meanwhile, the emergency management and safety needs of schools are numerous and complex. Acknowledging the value of interagency collaborative efforts, these Education officials also said that such efforts help avoid duplicative and inconsistent efforts across agencies. While officials from FEMA and Justice did not identify specific challenges with federal agency coordination in this area, these agencies focus more generally on emergency planning and not specifically on the needs of school districts and school emergency management planning—the area in which Education identified issues.

As efforts to develop the Federal Guide came to a close, Education officials told us that the agencies discussed the need to continue to coordinate federal school emergency preparedness efforts moving forward. According to these officials, the presidential plan that required development of the Federal Guide did not designate a lead agency going forward or give any agency direct authority or responsibility to convene an interagency working group or require the participation of other federal agencies. However, they said that the Department of Education Organization Act provides the agency the general authority to collaborate with other federal agencies to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of its programs and, where warranted and agreed upon, to serve as the lead agency in such collaborations. Importantly, Education officials also stressed that the ability to successfully carry out such activities relies to a large degree on other federal agencies’ cooperation as well. Staff from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)—the agency responsible for, among other things, communicating the President’s directions to Executive Branch officials regarding specific government-wide actions— told us that while they may become involved in federal interagency efforts absent clear leadership, federal efforts around school emergency preparedness are best handled by agencies and monitored by OMB through, for example, review of administration policy.

The absence of an interagency body to coordinate related federal efforts may hinder the ability of federal agencies to successfully address the complex emergency management needs of schools. Leading practices such as (1) identifying leadership for collaborative efforts; (2) defining and agreeing to common outcomes, and assigning accountability for these collaborative efforts; (3) identifying all relevant participants; and (4) identifying necessary resources have been shown to improve the likelihood of success for federal interagency efforts. Further, the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA), as updated by the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010, establishes a framework for a crosscutting and integrated approach by agencies to focus on results and improve government performance. This framework includes identifying how an agency is working with other agencies to achieve its performance goals, in that well-coordinated strategies can reduce potentially duplicative, overlapping, and fragmented efforts.

Most States Reported Requiring Emergency Operations Plans and Exercises, and Providing Training or Other Support

Most States Reported Requiring District or School Emergency Operations Plans, and Many Also Allowed Districts and Schools to Determine Plan Specifics

According to our survey of state educational agencies in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, 32 states reported requiring that districts have emergency operations plans and 34 states reported requiring that schools have plans, and 25 states reported requiring plans for both (see fig. 5). Additionally, many states also allowed districts and schools to determine the specific content of these plans. The states that reported they have requirements for districts and/or schools represent about 88 percent of K-12 students nationwide. Thus, even though not all states reported requiring plans, our district survey found an estimated 97 percent of districts nationwide had a plan, which can help schools plan for potential emergencies as noted by the Guide for Developing High-Quality School Emergency Operations Plans (Federal Guide).

Even though most states reported requiring districts and/or individual schools to have plans, our state survey found that many do not set forth specific requirements on plan content, and that the degree to which states require plans to contain specific content varies widely. For example, as shown in figure 6, 29 states reported requiring schools to address lockdown procedures in their plans while 10 reported requiring school plans to address continuity of operations. Similarly, 25 states reported requiring district plans to address evacuation procedures while 9 reported requiring district plans to address continuity of operations.

Our state survey also asked about requirements that district or individual school plans address the needs of specific populations of students, including those with disabilities, and found that fewer than half of states reported having such requirements; however, our district survey shows that most districts included these procedures in their plans. Specifically, 21 states reported requiring district or school plans to address the needs of individuals with disabilities or special needs. Separately, our district survey shows that an estimated 69 percent of districts nationwide reported having procedures in their district or school plans that support the access and needs of the whole school community, including these individuals. For example, in one of the elementary schools we visited, the school calls for a “buddy system” to help each special needs student evacuate during an emergency. The school’s plan also notes that special equipment, such as lights or horns, might be required to alert students with certain sensory disabilities during emergencies. In a similar trend, according to our state survey, fewer than 10 states reported requiring either districts or schools to address the needs of individuals with limited English proficiency. Our district survey shows that an estimated 45 percent of districts had procedures in their district or school plans for communicating with parents or students who are limited English proficient.

Another example of an area where states allowed districts and schools to determine the content of their plans is threats or hazards. According to our state survey, fewer than half of states reported requiring districts or individual schools to have plans that address certain specific threats or hazards, such as active shooter, infectious diseases, or food safety, but our district survey found that most districts have plans that do so. However, for fires and natural disasters, our state survey shows that about half or more of states reported requiring that plans address these specific threats and hazards (see table 2).

More Than Half of States Reported Requiring That Districts or Schools Conduct Emergency Exercises, Particularly Fire Drills

According to our state survey, 32 states reported requiring that districts conduct emergency exercises of their plans, such as drills, while 40 reported requiring that individual schools conduct them. The states that reported having requirements for districts and/or schools to conduct exercises represent about 83 percent of K-12 students nationwide. An estimated 96 percent of districts or their schools conducted emergency drills during school years 2012-13, 2013-14, and/or 2014-15, according to our district survey. Our state survey found that district and school fire drills were most frequently required, and active shooter drills significantly less so (see fig. 7). While our survey did not ask why certain drills were required more than others, Education officials told us that as part of emergency management planning, schools need to assess the likelihood of active shooter incidents, which present a smaller risk than other emergencies.

Nearly All States Provided Support to Plan for Emergencies, and Fewer Than Half Reported Requiring States or Districts to Review Emergency Operations Plans

Based on our survey of 51 state educational agencies, nearly all states provided training, technical assistance, or guidance to districts to assist in developing or implementing emergency operations plans. In addition, nine states provided state funds to districts in one or more fiscal years 2013 through 2015 and five of the nine provided funding in all three years. Officials in one of the states we visited said their state offers technical assistance and training to some districts and schools, and their state educational agency website has links to state and federal resources on planning for emergencies. In addition, two of the states we visited have state school safety centers that provide technical assistance and guidance to districts and schools (see sidebar).

As part of their efforts to provide districts with support for developing or implementing plans, 47 state educational agencies collaborated with their state emergency management agency, according to our state survey. In addition, in the three states we visited, state officials discussed collaboration among state agencies on school emergency management planning. The state educational agency officials we met with in these three states said they work with other state agencies on school emergency management issues. For example, in one state we visited, the state educational agency worked with the state departments of public safety, and health and human services on a school safety and security task force that set forth recommendations to districts and schools on making schools safe without compromising educational goals.

State education officials we met with also cited challenges they face when supporting district and school efforts to plan for emergencies. Officials in two of the three states we visited said limited resources, staff, and funding are challenges. More specifically, officials in one of these states said their office does not have sufficient staff or resources to provide emergency management planning assistance and training to schools on a wide scale. In another state, officials told us that limited funding and staff hinder the state’s ability to help districts and schools plan for emergencies.

Over half of states reported requiring districts or individual schools to have plans, as noted above, and fewer than half of states reported requiring that either district or school plans be reviewed at least every 2 years, according to our state survey. Similarly, fewer than half also reported requiring that either districts or state educational agencies review district or school plans. For those states that did report having requirements to review plans, 24 states required that districts review their own plans, and 24 states required that districts review school plans. Further, an estimated 79 percent of districts that required their schools to have plans also required their schools to submit these plans for district review, according to our district survey.

Most Districts Reported Updating and Practicing Emergency Operations Plans with First Responders, but Struggled to Balance Emergency Planning with Other School Priorities

Most Districts Involved School Personnel and First Responders in Developing and Updating Their Emergency Operations Plans

Most school districts involved a wide range of community members, particularly school personnel and first responders, when developing and updating their emergency operations plans, according to our nationally representative survey of school districts (see fig. 8).

Our prior work has shown similar levels of involvement with one notable difference: engagement of school resource officers, who are sworn law enforcement officers working in a school setting, increased from 42 percent in 2007 to 89 percent in 2015. Our district survey also found that an estimated 92 percent of districts recently updated their plans. Further, we estimate that almost all of the districts that require schools to have plans also require schools to update and review those plans.

School and district officials at the sites we visited also noted that school personnel and first responders were involved in their plan development. Officials in all five districts we visited in three states told us they had staff committed to emergency management planning. Further, officials at 9 of the 12 schools we visited also said they had teams responsible for such planning, many of which met regularly and included a variety of members. Officials from two schools added that their parent-teacher associations are supportive of emergency preparedness efforts and have provided funding for emergency supplies.

These practices align with a recommendation in the Federal Guide, specifically, that school emergency management planning not be done in isolation. The Federal Guide also notes that such collaboration makes more resources available and helps ensure the seamless integration of all responders. Relatedly, we found that an estimated 68 percent of districts incorporated their district plans into the broader community’s emergency management system. For example, officials from one district we visited said their school district is a part of the city’s emergency operations plan and has responsibility for providing shelter during emergencies.

As part of developing and updating an emergency operations plan, the Federal Guide recommends that districts and schools assess the risks posed to them by specific threats and hazards. Based on our survey data, we estimate that more than three-quarters of districts recently conducted such assessments of their vulnerabilities (see fig. 9).

For example, officials from one district told us that they conduct an annual safety assessment of each school. In doing so, they assess physical and access control, such as fences and locks. Officials from another district said assessments led to security enhancements, such as adding fences to sports fields, panic buttons that connect office staff to emergency officials, and software to run instant background checks.

Most Districts Reported Having Emergency Operations Plans That Address Threats and Hazards, While Half Did Not Include Certain Recovery Procedures

Our district survey found that most school districts had emergency operations plans that address multiple threats and hazards, such as intruders, fires, active shooters, natural disasters, and bomb threats (see fig. 10). We also observed during visits to schools that a school’s particular circumstances, such as location, affect the threats and hazards they face. For example, officials from one school said their plan includes not only common threats and hazards, such as fires, but also those associated with facilities nearby, including an airport and chemical plant.

According to our survey, districts generally had plans that address most of the emergency response procedures recommended in the Federal Guide, such as evacuation and shelter-in-place (see fig. 11). For example, we estimate that almost all districts had procedures in place for evacuation, lockdown, and communication and warning. To illustrate, officials from five schools we visited said they use an automated messaging system to notify parents of an emergency.

In contrast, our district survey estimates that about half of districts specified how they would maintain continuous operations or recover after an incident. For example, officials we interviewed from one school said that while their plan does not comprehensively address how they would maintain continuous operations after an incident, it does specify some aspects: if the school needed to close for an extended period, lessons could continue via a web portal. It is not readily apparent why fewer districts included these types of procedures in their plans. Education’s REMS TA Center offers several resources on these topics such as an online course for developing continuity of operations procedures, among others.

The Federal Guide recommends that emergency operations plans provide for the access and functional needs of the whole school community, including persons with disabilities and people with limited English proficiency, among others. As previously noted, our district survey found that an estimated 69 percent of districts had plans with procedures supporting persons with disabilities. An additional 22 percent of districts also had such procedures outside of their plans. We also learned about such procedures in some of the schools we visited. For example, officials from one school said that they used specially colored markers on the walls to guide a visually impaired student toward the exit. Officials from another school told us that during fire drills students who are highly reactive to loud noises such as a fire alarm are proactively given noise- reducing headphones. As noted earlier, our district survey estimated that 45 percent of districts had plans that address procedures for communicating with students or parents who are limited English proficient. An additional 26 percent of districts also reported having such procedures outside of their plans. Our visits to schools revealed specific examples. Officials from one school said teachers of students with limited English proficiency walk through each step of a drill to ensure these students understand. Regarding communication with parents who are limited English proficient, officials from one school said they have a contract with a language translation service to connect a school administrator, translator, and parent via conference call, when necessary.

Most Districts Conducted Emergency Exercises and Many Did So Regularly with First Responders

Our survey estimated that most school districts recently completed a variety of emergency exercises, such as drills and group discussions, and many did so regularly with first responders (see fig. 12). According to the survey, almost all districts conducted drills. Officials from four schools we visited said they explain drill procedures to students in an age-appropriate way, a practice recommended by the Federal Guide. For example, officials at one school we visited said that during a lockdown drill kindergarten teachers tell their students that a wild animal may be loose in the building.

In contrast, our survey estimated that fewer districts completed functional and full-scale exercises, which require a significant amount of planning, time, and resources. For example, officials from one school district told us they participated in a city-wide functional exercise that involved various community partners, such as the public health department. They said the 8-hour session helped participants better understand their roles during an emergency, for example, the responsibilities of school principals.

Districts that conducted drills, functional exercises, or full-scale exercises did so for specific threats or for certain procedures. For example, our survey found that almost all performed such exercises for fires and lockdowns (see fig. 13). This aligns with our state survey findings that many states reported requiring districts or schools to conduct such exercises.

Our survey also found that fewer districts—an estimated 67 percent— conducted active shooter exercises. In the districts we visited, we heard about some reasons for this. Officials from two districts said these exercises can create anxiety within the school community, including among parents. Officials from one of these districts noted the difficulty of striking a balance between providing knowledge and inciting fear, particularly at schools with younger children.

Based on our survey, we estimated that about half of districts practiced their emergency exercises annually with law enforcement and fire department officials (see fig. 14). Similar to the benefits cited in developing plans with community involvement, officials from two schools we visited told us that firefighters and police officers observe and provide feedback on their drills. Officials from one school cited the advantages of such interactions as strengthening community relationships as well as providing first responders with helpful information in advance of an emergency, such as a school’s layout. However, our survey estimated that about a quarter of districts reported having never practiced with emergency medical services or emergency management officials, and about a third never practiced with public health officials.

Following such exercises, the Federal Guide recommends that officials gather to evaluate how the process went, identify shortfalls, and document lessons learned. We found examples of this at the schools we visited. For example, officials from 7 of the 12 schools we visited said that they debrief after drills to determine what lessons could be learned. During our interviews with schools, we learned of such improvements. For example, officials at one school realized teachers could not lock their classroom doors without stepping into the hallway, potentially placing them in harm’s way. Officials remedied the problem by placing a magnet over the door’s locking mechanism which can be quickly removed to lock the door in an emergency. Another school discovered that all teachers need two-way radios during drills for effective communication.

Majority of Districts Reported Difficulty Balancing Emergency Management Planning with Other School Priorities

Based on our survey, an estimated 59 percent of districts reported difficulty balancing emergency management planning with higher priorities, such as instructional time. The survey also estimated that about half of districts reported that these competing priorities made it difficult to coordinate with community partners and organizations. Relatedly, it also estimated that more than half of districts felt that they did not conduct enough training because of limited time. Our visits to states and schools revealed similar challenges. Officials from one state told us that district and school staff had inadequate time for emergency management planning. Similarly, officials from 6 of the 12 schools we visited reported difficulty finding sufficient time to plan for emergencies, train staff, or conduct drills, with several noting that such activities competed with other school priorities. Officials from one school suggested additional professional staff days were needed, but said that negotiating such days can be difficult.

According to our survey, an estimated 49 percent of districts cited a lack of staff expertise and an estimated 42 percent of districts reported insufficient equipment as impediments to emergency management planning. For example, officials from one state we visited said that teachers are not trained in emergency management, such as on how to conduct table top exercises. In addition, officials from several districts and schools said obstacles to emergency preparedness can include schools’ physical aspects. For example, officials from one district said that schools with portable classrooms cannot use their intercom system to announce emergency drills, but rather must connect to those classrooms using a phone line.

Further, officials from two of the three states we visited and from Education said districts and schools have limited resources for emergency management planning. As mentioned previously, our state survey found that few states reported providing funding to help districts develop or implement their plans. Federal Education officials echoed a similar opinion stating that in an environment of constrained resources, districts and schools tend to focus almost exclusively on response activities, as opposed to the other four preparedness areas (prevention, protection, mitigation, and recovery). They suggested that this could have serious implications for schools and districts. For example, they said some districts and schools do not conduct thorough assessments of their risks and vulnerabilities and some school plans are not adequately customized because they are overly reliant on district-provided plan templates.

Conclusions

Confronting the range of threats and hazards to the nation’s 50 million public school students necessitates careful and comprehensive emergency management planning by school districts and schools. We were encouraged to note that nearly all districts reported having emergency operations plans and, as recommended in the 2013 Federal Guide for school emergency planning, involve a range of school personnel and community partners in developing and updating them, recognizing the critical importance of collaborating with stakeholders both within and outside the school community.

However, a majority of districts confront competing priorities with limited resources, which could hamper emergency management planning efforts, thus reinforcing the value of state and federal support. Education and other federal agencies individually offer a breadth of resources that districts and schools can use in their emergency planning. Although individual agencies continue to work on a range of emergency preparedness issues, and, in some cases, have continued to collaborate with other agencies in doing so, current collaboration efforts are insufficient to comprehensively address the complex and unique needs of schools. For example, an existing federal interagency group on active shooters was not created to address the range of threats and hazards schools face, nor to be specific to schools’ needs, which, given the presence of young children, can differ significantly from those of other institutions. Moreover, in the absence of a well-coordinated federal strategy for school emergency preparedness planning, federal agencies’ piecemeal approaches to school emergency management planning contribute to the gaps we identified in timely, continued, and most importantly, strategic coordination, and risk wasting limited federal resources on efforts that may be overlapping, duplicative, or fragmented.

To help protect students entrusted to public schools from natural and man-made threats and hazards, it remains critical for federal agencies to address key considerations shown to improve the likelihood of success for interagency collaboration on a well-coordinated federal strategy. The Department of Education stated that it has the general authority to collaborate with other federal agencies to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of its programs, and to serve as the lead agency in such collaborations where warranted and agreed upon. Absent agreement on a strategy consistent with leading collaboration practices, which include (1) identifying leadership for the effort; (2) defining and agreeing to common outcomes, and assigning accountability for these collaborative efforts; (3) identifying all relevant participants; and (4) identifying necessary resources; federal agencies may, over time, lose momentum and undermine the progress that has already been made, and risk providing support that is less effective than it otherwise could be.

Recommendation for Executive Action

Using its general authority to collaborate with other federal agencies, we recommend that the Secretary of Education convene its federal interagency partners to develop a strategic approach to interagency collaboration on school emergency preparedness. This group could include designees or delegates from the Secretaries of DHS, HHS, and the Attorney General, including representatives from relevant agency components, such as FEMA, TSA, and the FBI, and others as appropriate, and should incorporate leading federal interagency collaboration practices, for example, by: defining outcomes and assigning accountability, including all relevant participants, and identifying necessary resources.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

We provided a draft of this report to the Departments of Education (Education), Health and Human Services (HHS), Homeland Security (DHS), and Justice (Justice) for review and comment. Education provided written comments that are reproduced in appendix II. Education, DHS, and Justice also provided technical comments, which we incorporated as appropriate. HHS did not provide comments.

In written comments, Education stated that it shares the view outlined in the report that improved federal coordination will better assist K-12 schools in preparing for emergencies, and noted that other federal agencies, including especially FEMA, play a significant role in school emergency preparedness. Additionally, Education cited the importance of involving other relevant agencies in obtaining agreement on the assignment of roles and responsibilities, including selecting a lead agency charged with primary responsibility for coordinating federal emergency preparedness assistance to K-12 schools. Given the roles of other agencies, Education encouraged us to modify the recommendation that was included in the draft that was provided to agencies for comment. Specifically, in that draft we recommended that Education convene and lead an interagency collaborative group on school emergency planning, consistent with leading practices.

In light of Education’s response, which we agree is consistent with leading practices on federal interagency collaboration that, among other things, include identifying leadership for the collaborative mechanism and all relevant participants, we modified the recommendation and report accordingly. We believe that doing so will help increase the likelihood of achieving a well-coordinated federal strategy in which all relevant federal partners are identified, included, and invested—helping, ultimately, to reduce the risk of wasting limited federal resources on efforts that may be overlapping, duplicative, or fragmented.

As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days from the report date. At that time, we will send copies to the Secretaries of Education, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and other interested parties. In addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO website at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staffs should have any questions about this report, please contact me at (202) 512-7215 or nowickij@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made key contributions to this report are listed in appendix III.

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

This report addressed the following questions: (1) how do federal agencies support school emergency management planning and to what extent do they coordinate their efforts; (2) to what extent do states require and support efforts to plan for school emergencies; and (3) what have school districts done to plan and prepare for emergencies and what challenges, if any, have they faced?

In addressing these objectives, we conducted interviews with officials from the Departments of Education, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, and Justice and with staff at the Office of Management and Budget; and reviewed relevant federal documents, such as the Guide for Developing High-Quality School Emergency Operations Plans. We also reviewed leading practices on interagency collaboration to assess the collaborative efforts of these agencies. We also deployed three web- based surveys: one to state educational agencies, another to state administrative agencies, and a third to a stratified random sample of school districts. We also conducted site visits during which we interviewed state, district, and school officials in three states.

Surveys of States and Districts

To better understand the role of states in how school districts and schools prepare for emergencies, we administered two web-based surveys—one to state educational agencies and a separate one to state administrative agencies—to all 50 states and the District of Columbia. We asked state educational agencies about their requirements of and recommendations for districts and schools regarding emergency management planning, among other things. We asked state administrative agencies about receipt and distribution of certain federal funds to districts or schools for emergency management planning activities. We administered these surveys from April through July 2015. For both surveys, all 51 state agencies responded, resulting in response rates of 100 percent.

To better understand how districts and schools plan and prepare for emergencies, we also administered a third web-based survey. We obtained data from Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, which maintains the Common Core of Data for public school districts, for the 2012-13 school year, which was the most recent data available. We originally selected a stratified random sample of 598 from a population of 16,284 school districts, with strata based on size and urban status, but ultimately excluded 25 districts from our original population and sample because they had closed, operated exclusively online, were located in a juvenile detention center, or had fewer than 5 students, and thus were not considered eligible for our survey. This resulted in a sample of 573 from the eligible population of 16,259 districts (see table 3).

We administered this survey to districts from April through July 2015 and 403 districts, or 70 percent of our sample, responded to the survey. Because we followed a probability procedure based on random selections, our sample is only one of a large number of samples that we might have drawn. Since each sample could have provided different estimates, we expressed our confidence in the precision of our particular sample’s results as a 95 percent confidence interval (e.g., plus or minus 7 percentage points). This is the interval that would contain the actual population value for 95 percent of the samples we could have drawn. Unless otherwise noted, all percentage estimates in this report have confidence intervals within plus or minus 7 percentage points. For other estimates, the confidence intervals are presented along with the estimates themselves. In the survey, we asked questions about the emergency operations plans of districts and their schools, such as about plan development and implementation, plan content, training and resources, and challenges to emergency management planning.

The quality of both the state and district survey data can be affected by nonsampling error, which includes, for example, variations in how respondents interpret questions, respondents’ willingness to offer accurate responses, nonresponse error (failing to collect data on members of the sample or answers to individual questions from respondents), and data collection and processing errors. To minimize such error, we included the following steps in developing the survey and in collecting and analyzing survey data. We pre-tested draft versions of the instrument with state educational agency officials in four states, state administrative agency officials in two states, and officials in four districts to check the clarity of the questions and the flow and layout of the survey. On the basis of the pretests, we made revisions to all three surveys. Further, using a web-based survey and allowing state and district officials to enter their responses into an electronic instrument created an automatic record for each state and district and eliminated the errors associated with a manual data entry process. To increase response rates, we sent e-mails and placed phone calls to recipients of all three surveys. We conducted a nonresponse bias analysis to assess the potential difference in answers between those school districts that did participate in the survey and those that did not. We determined components of the sampling strata and school district size to be significantly associated with the propensity to respond. We adjusted the sampling weights for these characteristics using standard weighting class adjustments to compensate for possible nonresponse errors and treat the respondent analyses using the nonresponse adjusted weights as unbiased for the population of eligible school districts. In addition, the programs used to analyze the survey data were independently verified to ensure the accuracy of this work.

Site Visits

To understand emergency management planning at the local level, we conducted site visits in three states from February to May 2015. The states we visited included Massachusetts, Texas, and Washington. We selected states that represent geographic diversity and varied across characteristics, such as type of federal funding for emergency preparedness and whether there was a state school safety center, which provides training and guidance to enhance school safety and security. In each state, we interviewed state education officials, including staff from state school safety centers, if applicable. Within these states, we also interviewed officials from five school districts, which were selected to reflect a mix of urban, suburban, and rural areas. In each district, we interviewed officials from at least two schools of varying student ages. In one state, we also interviewed officials from a charter school that was independent of these five districts and received federal funding for school emergency preparedness. In total, we interviewed officials from 12 schools. Information obtained during these interviews is not generalizable, but provides insight into school emergency management planning at the state, district, and school level.

We conducted this performance audit from October 2014 to March 2016 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Education

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Staff Acknowledgments

In addition to the contact named above, Kathryn Larin and Janet Mascia (Assistant Directors), Avani Locke (Analyst-in-Charge), Teresa Heger, Kathryn O’Dea Lamas, Sheila McCoy, Jean McSween, and James Rebbe made significant contributions to this report. Also contributing to this report were Susan Aschoff, Deborah Bland, Christopher Currie, Christopher Keisling, Ruben Montes de Oca, Mimi Nguyen, Erin O’Brien, William Reinsberg, Paul Schearf, Salvatore Sorbello, Sonya Vartivarian, and Sarah Veale.