Question:

Don,

We have school buildings next to each other that share the same campus. In your professional view, if a lockdown is initiated at one building, what should occur at the other building on the same campus?

Please share your reasoning for this.

Answer:

I looked at both of the campuses via Google maps and I think their proximity to each other is the key factor. They are so close together that you could almost classify them as one campus with two buildings. Therefore, my recommendation would be that if one would lockdown both should lockdown.

If there was anything separating them, I wouldn’t make this recommendation. My natural inclination in other situations is that the school in distress goes to a lockdown and everyone else goes to a lockout. However, I keep coming back to proximity plus human behavior and past experiences with school attackers. With these in mind, I would say that when one goes to a lockdown—both go to a lockdown.

Here’s my reasoning in order of most to least compelling.

1. The schools are so close that if a threat was observed outside, it would be extremely difficult or even impossible to know for certain or even predict which school the offender has targeted.
   
   For example, there is a parking lot between School Number #1 and School Number #2 and from Google Maps I can’t tell which school the parking lot belongs to. I’m guessing that both schools use it. If a guy with a gun was spotted in that parking lot it would be impossible to know which school to lockdown and which one to lockout. By the time you realized which school the threat was headed towards it would only take a few seconds for him to reach an entry point and by then it would be too late to correct the response if you got it wrong.
2. This leads me to my next point—human behavior/limitations. The more confusing the situation the simpler the drill (response) must be. The more complicated the response the higher the risk of failure. One school doing one thing and another school doing something else is possible but complicated. You know your staff better than I do but the leaders would have to be very skilled to effectively implement two separate responses for schools so close to each other.
   
   It is easier for the staff to train and prepare for one plan instead of two plans. “If they go to a lockdown we go to a lockdown. If we go to a lockout—they go to a lockout.” That’s simple and easy to remember and implement.
   
   “We do what they do and they do what we do”.
3. It must be normal for staff members to see adults outside who they don’t know because they’re visiting the other school. This has a tendency to create complacency with challenging strangers. I’m afraid the schools might be slow to act simply because it’s so normal to see ‘strangers’ on or near their property. If this is true, then having multiple drills may only slow their response even more.
4. While it’s not the norm, 1 school attacker did try to attack multiple schools on the same day. The proximity of the two schools to each other raises the risk of that happening to them. Therefore, acting as one will help to lower the risk for both.

Having said all this…

1. If one school has a past history of doing lots of lockdowns…when it hasn’t absolutely been needed…then I’d be very careful not to inadvertently build in complacency in the other school which is forced to lockdown each time the other school does.
   
   Uvalde (the recent school attack in Texas) endured 50 lockouts/lockdowns in 5 months because of problems in the community. As identified in the Texas Representative Report, this constant alert status without something visibly happening in their school created complacency with the staff.
   
   I would just watch it carefully and be ready to implement extra training/help if it ever looks like one school is getting burned out because of the other.
2. I’d encourage the schools to increase their communication with each other as well as their staff members.
   
   If I were the principal and my adjoining school went into a lockdown—I’d push the button for a lockdown (whatever method used) and then I’d immediately get on the PA and tell my staff (using plain English) that such and such school has initiated a lockdown. Therefore, we are also initiating a lockdown. We don’t know yet what is happening. We will find out and let you know immediately.
   
   The better the communication the better the understanding and effectiveness.

I think your situation is unique because of how close the two schools are to each other. Therefore, the best response would be to mirror their responses. If one goes to a lockdown, they both go to a lockdown.

I hope this was helpful. Please let me know if you have any follow up questions or if I need to clarify any point. I’m happy to help!

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If you have any questions about school safety, student safety assessments, preventing violence, or anything else please let me know and I’ll be happy to help.

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