School Active Shooter Preparedness

Essential Training for Protecting Students and Staff

In today’s world, school administrators, teachers, and staff face unique challenges in ensuring the safety of students. A critical component of a school’s safety plan is active shooter preparedness, which equips staff with the knowledge and skills to respond effectively if an active shooter incident occurs.

Through active shooter response training for schools and emergency response training for schools, educational institutions can create a safer environment, enhancing readiness and confidence among staff and students alike.

Why Active Shooter Preparedness Matters for Schools

Active shooter incidents are unpredictable and can unfold rapidly. Schools—responsible for protecting some of our most vulnerable populations—must prioritize preparedness and have clear protocols in place. School active shooter preparedness involves not only training staff on response protocols but also fostering an environment of awareness and resilience.

According to a recent report, the average time it takes first responders to arrive at the scene of an active shooter incident is between 7-10 minutes. For this reason, school staff active shooter preparedness plays a crucial role, as the first actions taken by those already on-site can make a life-saving difference.

An overwhelming percentage of teachers and school staff feel unprepared for active shooter incidents.

Uncontrolled bleeding is a leading cause of preventable death in emergencies.

Key Components of Active Shooter Preparedness for Schools

Here’s a look at some of the components we emphasize in our training:

1. Situational Awareness and Early Warning Signs

In many cases, recognizing the early warning signs of potential violence can prevent an incident from escalating. Our training focuses on situational awareness, teaching staff how to identify behaviors of concern and report them promptly. By understanding these signs, staff can take proactive steps that may prevent an incident from occurring in the first place.

2. Escape, Evade and Attack Protocols

Knowing when to escape and how to evade or attack is critical in an active shooter situation. AVERT’s emergency response training for schools covers these decision-making protocols, helping staff determine the best action depending on their location, the threat’s proximity, and available escape routes. Practicing these drills enables staff and students to act quickly and effectively during an emergency.

3. Hands-On Active Shooter Drills

Our school active shooter preparedness training goes beyond theoretical knowledge by providing hands-on drills that simulate real-life scenarios. These exercises help participants develop muscle memory, enabling them to act decisively and effectively in a crisis. Through realistic practice, school staff learn to overcome the shock factor and make critical decisions under pressure.

4. Bleeding Control and Emergency First Aid

During an active shooter event, injuries are a tragic but possible outcome. Our training includes techniques to stop the bleed of an individual, which empowers school staff to administer emergency first aid and control bleeding until professional help arrives. In a situation where every second counts, having these skills can significantly increase survival rates and help save lives.

Stop the Bleed

After a severe injury, a person can bleed to death in as little as 3 minutes. When there is an active shooter in your church and people have been wounded, helping those who have been hurt with emergency bleeding techniques until first responders get to the scene is critical. Our training will give your church leaders, volunteers, and congregation the skills necessary to do that.

In particular, AVERT delivers training that focuses on how to stop the bleeding in an emergency. The correct emergency bleeding control techniques will save lives during and immediately after an active shooter scenario, so these techniques are vital to understand.

Emergency Response Tactics

Knowing exactly how to respond in an emergency situation is not always as easy as it might sound. The right techniques and an understanding of how to escape and evade harm, while also protecting others is what we offer through our training courses.

Training with AVERT ensures everyone participating in the program has a solid and practical understanding of active shooter response procedures and how to deploy them if the need ever arises.

Live Scenario Simulations

As part of the training we offer, we implement a live shooter scenario simulation. This allows all the people participating in the training course to experience how an active shooter situation might play out in a safe and controlled way.

It is hard to know how you and those around you will respond to an active shooter situation until you are actually experiencing it and living through it. A live simulation will give you the opportunity to find out where improvements need to be made.

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WHY OUR APPROACH WORKS

8 Hours of Training. A Lifetime of Readiness.

○ Active Shooter Preparedness

○ Essentials of Stop the Bleed

○ Situational Awareness

○ First Aid, CPR, & AED

Integrated Learning

○ A cohesive program that combines all aspects of safety, rather than fragmented, multi-vendor training.

Hands-On & Practical

○ We emphasize practical, relatable examples followed by measurable drills to build confidence and retention

Real-World Preparedness

○ Employees, staff, and students retain critical information because the training is dynamic, engaging, and based on real-world situations.