“Protect That Child At All Costs”: How Practitioner Perception of Active Shooter Drills Affects Implementation in Early Years Settings in the United States

Although 94.6% of schools in the United States performed active shooter drills in the 2015-2016 school year (King, Bracy, Addington, & Muschert, 2019), there has been dearth of research on the use of these drills, especially in early years settings. This study aimed to address this research gap by examining how early years practitioners’ perceptions of active shooter drills affect their implementation of those drills. Following a mixed-methods design based in trauma-informed research, this study used an initial questionnaire to invite and screen participants for a follow-up, semi-structured interview. The findings showed that all five interview participants believed that the methodology of drill implementation was important when mitigating negative emotional responses, both for adult and child participants. However, all five participants also believed that the drills served as preparation for a real event that could happen to them at any time, and thus a tradeoff had to be made between positive emotions and true preparedness. As the literature shows that real active shooter scenarios are relatively rare, there should be a better balance between preparedness and emotional security, especially in the formative setting of early years education.