It is the position of the National Association of School Nurses (NASN) that a collaborative, evidence-based, systems-thinking approach to school emergency preparedness is necessary to maintain safe, supportive, and equitable learning environments for all students. The registered professional school nurse (hereinafter referred to as "school…

BACKGROUND: Lockdown drills are mandated within many educational settings in the US; they may contribute to adverse mental health and there is little to suggest their effectiveness. We describe factors associated with post-drill anxiety and perceived effectiveness of drills. METHODS: We surveyed youth-caregiver dyads presenting to the pediatric…

The National Incident Management System (NIMS) is part of the National Preparedness System and supports the National Response Framework. NIMS puts forth a systematic approach to collaborating across disciplines and all levels of government to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from threats and hazards that impact the…

As online classrooms become more common, schools and school districts should consider how use of them might impact school safety, security, emergency management, and preparedness planning and how online classrooms may be affected by various hazards and threats. This fact sheet provides emergency management planning considerations for online…

The Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools (REMS) Technical Assistance (TA) Center has created a list of resources on the role of special educators in school safety efforts. The list includes the following categories: (1) Access and/or Functional Needs (AFN) and Emergencies; (2) Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) Development; (3) Hazard- and…

This document describes resources to support the role of teachers in school safety efforts. The resources are organized into the following categories: (1) General Resources; (2) Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) Development; (3) Educator Resilience and Self-Care; (4) Hazard- and Threat-Specific; and (5) Youth Preparedness.

School preparedness is strengthened by prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery activities (also known as the five preparedness mission areas). This fact sheet describes what response is, how response is connected to the other preparedness missions, what response efforts planning teams may want to consider, and how response…

Youth preparedness is all about teaching and training children and youth those skills that help them to be actively engaged in school safety every day and to be ready to jump in during and after emergencies. This Ready.gov article highlights several instances of how teens involved in Youth Preparedness Councils across the country stepped up to…

This handbook aids in planning for effective crisis communication at institutions of higher education. The book opens with a behind-the-scenes look at a particular crisis--the 1990 murders of five students at the University of Florida. This first section offers tested advice from a campus communicator, an account of the crisis and the…