Faulty Active Shooter Alarms Cause Real Harm to Students and Staff

Before a new alarm system is installed on campus, there are a few important questions that every school administrator should ask.

When the "active shooter alarm" went off at Cape Tech High in Cape Cod, MA on Friday morning, students evacuated the school and ran into the woods surrounding the campus. The false alarm was so disruptive that counselors were made available and classes were cancelled for the remainder of the day.

It's unclear why the alarm went off. The superintendent cryptically said the system "didn’t function to its fullest".

Unlike fire alarm systems that have an entire book of standards and regulations from the National Fire Protection Administration, there are no national performance or system standards for active shooter alarms. It’s not even clear what agency would be responsible for this oversight.

It is clear that many school officials haven't considered the impact of false alarms when they invest in school security technology. The day after Michigan students and staff held a memorial for four classmates murdered two year ago at Oxford High, the active shooter alarm went off at Oxford Middle.

Dear Oxford Schools Community,

I am writing to provide an update on the false alarm that occurred this morning at Oxford Middle School. The alarm security company responded to OMS immediately to problem solve what occurred. It has been determined that the alarm had an irregular power draw causing the hardware to malfunction. All physical connections have been removed from the hardware that has malfunctioned.

The situation was activating for many of our students and staff, and additional supports were provided to OMS students and staff immediately. Also, on Monday, additional supports will be provided for students and staff at OMS. During first hour, there will be a structured restorative activity intended for students to process how this impacted them individually and as a school community. The district restorative practices coordinator will be present at this time along with other district mental health professionals.

Sincerely, Dr. Vickie L. Markavitch

Unintended Unimagined Consequences

Here are a few things that can go wrong with an active shooter alarm:

1. Set off accidentally (Maine West High, Harrison Central High)

2. Activated by a power surge (Oxford Middle)

3. Tripped when a battery in a panic button remote is changed (Framingham High)

4. Accidentally turned on during maintenance on the system (Butler Middle)

5. Triggered by a substitute teacher who hasn’t been trained on the alarm (Troy High: this happened twice in the same day by a substitute teacher who didn’t know that a special keyboard key would activate the alarm. After the second false alarm caused by the same teacher, classes were cancelled for the remainder of the day)

6. Deliberately pulled by students as a prank (Kids have pulled fire alarms since they were invented and it’s only a matter of time before pranksters pull the blue handles too)

It’s also important to consider that if a school has an anonymous reporting app, any student can make a fake threat to cancel classes without facing any consequences...because it's anonymous.

Harper Junior High School in Davis will be closed Monday while police investigate an anonymous shooting threat. The threat claimed a shooting was going to take place on Monday, March 5th. The school says someone anonymously reported the threat on a mobile app called "Stop-it" which lets users report inappropriate behavior.  The decision to close was announced in a letter to parents that was posted to the school's website on Saturday.

Confusing Procedures

Before active shooter alarms were invented, the only alarm that would go off in a school is the fire alarm. When the alarm bells ring, everyone lines up and walks to assembly points outside of the building.

Lockdowns and active shooter alarms have made this simple procedure very confusing. Just look at this guidance for teachers from the State of Colorado:

1. If the fire alarm goes off, evacuate.

2. If you are on lockdown and the fire alarm goes off, don’t evacuate.

3. If you aren’t on lockdown but you think there might be a threat and the fire alarm goes off, wait for the administrator to tell you what to do.

4. If a fire alarm goes off during any situation, use your best judgement.

What?!? The official procedures for a fire alarm are to leave, stay, wait for guidance, and decide on your own.

Path Forward

Any investments in school security need to be carefully analyzed and coordinated with everyone who is involved in school security (by the way, What is School Security?). The best solutions, though also incredibly complicated, are crisis intervention and threat assessment programs that stop shootings before they happen.

Before a school official decides to purchase and install an active shooter alarm, there a couple basic questions to ask:

1. Is this system reliable?

2. What safeguards prevent false alarms?

3. Does a second alarm (in addition to the legally required fire alarm) create more confusion or more clarity during an emergency?

4. Based on the real world circumstances of +2,600 shootings at schools, would an active shooter alarm save lives in these situations?

5. Can an active shooter alarm be used by a nefarious actor to make an attack even worse (most school shooters are current and former students who will be trained in how to respond to or trigger the alarm)?

The most important thing to remember is there’s no simple solution that can be purchased to stop the next school shooting. Buying an alarm system that doesn’t work correctly—or even worse, causes more confusion during an emergency—can do more harm than good.

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David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database and a national expert on school shootings. Listen to my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio and the New England Journal of Medicine.