Literature HOMEWORK

Joshua Casey

National University

HSE490: Supervised Senior Project

Professor Bruce Reaves

April 5, 2026

Chapter II: Literature Review

Introduction

The field of school emergency preparedness has evolved from questioning the need for schools to be prepared for violence to questioning the preparedness practices that enhance staff action during an active threat. For our study, this distinction is critical because the problem is not just that schools have emergency plans, but that some practices in those plans support staff readiness and response performance in ways that may prevent casualties. The purpose of this literature review is to establish what has been written about the quality of school preparedness, the role of training in building staff readiness, the nature of staff response performance during active threats, and the current gaps in that knowledge. It is also consistent in the emphasis on public schools, active threat situations, and the connections between training, communication, coordination, readiness, and performance. This structure clarifies how the current literature aligns with the study, as well as how it suggests more research is needed to understand these relationships better.

Preparedness Training and Staff Readiness

Preparedness training strengthens staff readiness most clearly when it builds practical confidence without increasing generalized fear. Schildkraut et al. (2022) The findings indicate that training is associated with increased preparedness, while perceptions of safety remain largely unchanged. They surveyed 3,000 school-based staff in a large urban district. They found that participation in drills and emergency training was associated with increased perceived preparedness, particularly among teachers and staff, while perceptions of school safety remained largely unchanged (Schildkraut et al., 2022, pp. 1889–1890). This study is particularly important because it distinguishes between two things that are often conflated. Perceived safety is not the same as perceived readiness. In terms of an active shooter threat, this is important because a school may not make students and staff feel less afraid, but it can increase their operational preparedness. Equally, it has perceptual outcomes and thus cannot demonstrate that perceptions of greater preparedness necessarily lead to greater readiness and performance during an active threat. This area is award. Nonetheless, it is strongly supportive of the idea that preparedness training is an important tool for increasing readiness. These results indicate that preparedness training has the potential to reinforce perceived preparedness in school staff. Nevertheless, the research is still not able to demonstrate which particular preparedness practices are most effective in transforming that preparedness into more effective response performance during active threat conditions in public high schools.

The quality of drills appears to matter more for staff readiness than the simple number of drills conducted. Perry et al. (2026) demonstrated that staff perceptions of the effectiveness of drills are important, but the number of drills might not be. Drawing on a nationally representative sample of 5,107 teachers, the authors showed that perceived effectiveness of active shooter and lockdown drills was associated with increased perceptions of safety and decreased intentions to leave teaching, particularly among teachers who had experienced student violence (p. 258). Later, the same study found that more drills were associated with lower perceived safety and higher intentions to leave the teaching profession (p. 264). This study is important because it suggests that more drills are not necessarily better. It demonstrates that staff readiness is affected by the presence, but also the relevance and perceived credibility of drills. This is a good study because it is national in scale and shows that there is more to the picture than straightforward pro-drill or anti-drill arguments. The weakness of the research is that it is based on teacher perceptions as opposed to observation of emergency responses. However, it demonstrates readiness is about quality and meaning, not simply exposure. This study demonstrates that the quality of drills and their perceived usefulness are more important than mere repetition. Nevertheless, it does not yet specify which particular training, communication, or coordination practices are most effective in enhancing staff preparedness and response performance in cases of active threats.

Psychological readiness is also a necessary part of staff preparedness during active threat situations. Welton Mitchell et al (2025) take the concept of readiness further by claiming that staff also need psychological preparedness. In their research on a mental health integrated emergency preparedness intervention for public school staff, they observe that teachers and school-based staff are not included in the development of emergency preparedness plans or drills, but are expected to execute these in an emergency (p. 389). The intervention outcomes also demonstrated a statistically significant increase in psychological preparedness in the participants who had been trained, and the authors concluded that the training led to participants feeling more psychologically prepared and in more control during a crisis (p. 396). This article is very important because threat response involves more than remembering a procedure. These findings suggest that preparedness involves more than procedural knowledge. It's particularly useful because it assesses intervention rather than just staff perceptions. However, it did not find significant differences in general psychological symptoms, which it attributed, in part, to the short duration of the intervention (p. 396). This suggests psychological preparedness can be improved, but it may need more than a single workshop to affect more profound psychological symptoms. These results show that psychological preparedness is a significant aspect of staff preparedness. Nevertheless, the study still falls short of determining the combination of psychological preparedness and procedural training and communication practices to enhance measurable response performance in the context of an active threat.

Response Performance During Active Threats

Response performance during an active threat depends on whether staff can carry out protective actions correctly and consistently under pressure. Schildkraut et al. (2023) take us closer to response performance in their discussion of lockdown drills. The authors suggest that the basic lockdown procedure involves securing the space by locking or barricading doors, turning off lights, remaining out of sight, and maintaining silence to create distance from the threat (pp. 167–168). More importantly, their two-part study found that continued training and drills built and maintained skill mastery in the correct deployment of lockdown procedures and that the use of lockdowns in real-world school shootings had a protective effect associated with fewer injuries and deaths (pp. 167 - 168). What this article does best is move beyond perceptions and toward behavioral indicators such as skill mastery and correct procedural execution. They also account for the value of repeated procedures. The problem is that there is little real-world evidence of casualties in school shootings that can be untangled from other mitigating factors, such as building design and shooter tactics. Nevertheless, this research provides some of the best evidence that response performance needs to be assessed not by the presence of policy, but by discrete protective action. This study demonstrates that practice drills can lead to mastery of the skills and can help in the reduction of harm in actual situations. Nevertheless, it does not completely address the question of the most effective preparedness practices to enhance staff response performance in case of an active threat situation in public high schools.

Efforts to improve response performance must also account for the fact that educators often support drills while still recognizing their harm and inconsistencies. Advant et al. (2026) demonstrate that response-based practices are still debated because schools are weighing the value of the practice against psychological impacts. In their mixed-methods study of 125 educators from Vermont county, 42% of respondents acknowledged experiencing psychological harm from active shooter drills, yet 79% also found the drills valuable, and the authors conclude that more formal state guidelines are needed to increase consistency across schools (p. 1). The article also cites previous survey studies showing that teachers were split on whether drills contributed to feelings of preparedness, with many reporting no impact on a school's sense of safety and a minority reporting feeling safer (pp. 1-2). This study is important because it demonstrates the reasons why preparedness debates continue, even in situations where drills are well accepted. Teachers can accept drills, but not how they are conducted. The study is valuable because it raises the issue of standardization. Its limitation is that it's localized and relies on self-reports rather than observation. Nonetheless, it shows that response performance cannot be improved in the long term if preparedness exercises create confusion or mistrust. These results indicate that teachers can facilitate exercises and, at the same time, be aware of their psychological and procedural constraints. Nevertheless, the study does not go as far as to determine the best preparedness practices that enhance the performance of the staff in responding to the incident and reduce the confusion and distress that undermine emergency action.

Link Between Staff Readiness and Response Performance

The evidence suggests that staff readiness and response performance are linked, but the connection is neither automatic nor simple. Schildkraut et al. (2022) demonstrate that drills and training can increase perceived preparedness for an emergency without affecting general perceptions of school safety (pp. 1889-1890). This suggests that readiness can be thought of as a skill rather than an emotion. Schildkraut et al. (2023) then find that repeated training can sustain the proficiency required to perform lockdown responses correctly and may reduce injuries and deaths in real-world situations (pp. 167-176). These studies taken together suggest a pathway from readiness to response. Staff must first understand procedures and feel prepared to act, which may then translate into coordinated protective action under high-stress conditions. However, the literature remains somewhat cautious because many studies measure readiness as perceptions and performance as drills, case reviews, or proxies. Therefore, the present study is warranted in considering readiness and response performance as separate concepts that need to be considered when assessing preparedness effectiveness. These studies collectively prove that staff readiness and response performance are interrelated, yet the correlation between them is not fully clarified in the literature. The current literature remains short of determining which preparedness practices are the most reliable in converting augmented staff preparedness to greater emergency response in active threat scenarios in community high schools.

Organizational Foundations of Emergency Preparedness

School emergency preparedness depends first on the quality of the planning structure that guides staff action during a crisis. Aspiranti et al. (2024) demonstrate the need to look beyond the existence of a plan to understand school emergency preparedness. Having examined 73 school and district crisis plans, the authors report the plans include an average of only 22.29 of the 102 items on the checklist used to assess comprehensive crisis planning, and they describe how successful plans should outline roles and resources, include plausible situations, outline an evaluation process, and devise effective communication strategies for staff, parents, and first responders (pp. 4189 - 4190). This research is important because it focuses on quality rather than merely presence. A written plan may meet a legal requirement but not guide staff during a threat. It's also convincing because it employs a checklist rather than an anecdote. However, it assesses the quality of the plan, not staff performance, so it cannot determine whether better plans lead to better performance during a crisis. Nevertheless, it's a critical first step because it shows that plan quality is variable and many schools may enter a crisis with an organizational "half-formed" state. This study has shown that a lot of schools can find themselves in a crisis with half-baked planning systems that undermine role clarity and communication. Nevertheless, it does not go far enough to demonstrate which particular planning gaps have the most direct negative impact on staff preparedness and reaction performance in active threat scenarios in public high schools.

Effective emergency preparedness also depends on whether trained crisis teams can carry out school safety models in practice. Cruz et al. (2025) extends this focus on organizations by demonstrating that preparedness is related to whether crisis teams trained in safety models can implement them. Their qualitative study of PREPaRE-trained multidisciplinary crisis teams shows that after the training workshop, most teams were more stable and cohesive, and most began to implement the PREPaRE model in crisis prevention and preparedness. Their findings indicate that following PREPaRE training, most teams became more cohesive and began implementing the model in prevention and preparedness efforts. The study also identified key drivers of implementation, including administrative support, sufficient team membership, and team competency, as well as barriers such as lack of leadership buy-in, limited time for planning and drills, and staff turnover (Cruz et al., 2025, pp. 4552–4553). This finding demonstrates that preparedness is not just a technical matter of knowing what to do. It is also an organizational concern involving leadership, time, and human resources. It also focuses on implementation rather than prescription. A weakness of the study is that it examines school crisis teams in general rather than active threat response in public high schools specifically. Still, the study gives us insight into why some preparedness systems are usable, and others are not when a crisis strikes. These results indicate that readiness is contingent on the conditions of implementation, including the support of the leader, staffing stability, and planning and drills time. Nevertheless, the research fails to establish the impact of these organizational impediments on quantifiable employee preparedness and response delivery in active threat scenarios in community high schools.

Summary

This chapter's review of the existing literature demonstrates that public school emergency preparedness is most valid when considered as a process rather than as a document. Prior research shows that plan quality varies widely, that training may increase staff preparedness, and that practice may improve procedural performance during lockdown or other protective actions. Yet the literature also demonstrates that preparedness is not improved simply by increasing the number of drills, as staff perceptions of quality, psychological impact, leadership support, communication systems, and organizational consistency affect preparedness experiences and responses. This literature suggests that staff readiness and performance are intimately connected. However, these studies still have not clearly delineated which preparedness measures are most closely aligned in situations of active threat. That gap justifies the current study's intent and provides a basis for exploring the effects of training, communication, and coordination on staff preparedness and response performance in public schools.

References