Monthly Terror Drills Now Required By Law For Students Including Kindergarten And 1st Graders

by Alexander Higgins
Sep. 19, 2011

Kindergarten and 1st grade students are now required by law to participate in monthly terrorism drills, including active shooter, bomb threat and evacuation drills. I recently received my 1st grade students back to school paperwork. Going through the packet I found a letter serving notification that my son is now required by law to participate in monthly anti-terrorism drills.

In fact, after doing more research, I learned that all NJ schools which provide services to children from Kindergarten and up are now required by law to participate in monthly drills.

Schools must hold at least twice a year, in addition to the twice a month fire drills the following:

Active shooter
Evacuation (non- fire)
Bomb threat
and Lockdown

On top of those drills, schools will be required to also hold other security drills, which include the following:

Shelter-in-place
Reverse evacuation
Evacuation to relocation site
Testing of school's notification system and procedures
Testing of school's communication system and procedures
Tabletop exercise
and Full scale exercise