Whether working at K-12 schools, colleges or hospitals, scenario-based training exercises, often referred to as tabletop exercises, are an effective way to improve campus safety and security. They bring together a wide variety of stakeholders and test a school or campus’ emergency plans. It forces people to think without having to be in a real situation where it might be too late.

“A tabletop exercise is a really great get-your-feet-wet kind of way to practice,” says Paul Timm, vice president of Facility Engineering Associates, who has led tabletop exercises at several Campus Safety Conferences. “It is where we can gather the relevant stakeholders around a table and then throw out a scenario and ask those stakeholders to tell us how they would respond given that scenario. We don’t want to fail during a real situation, we want to fail during a simulation, a drill or an exercise of some kind so that we can identify our vulnerabilities and decide how we want to prioritize those.”

If you’re looking to conduct tabletop exercises for your campus but aren’t sure where to start, Guy Bliesner, an analyst for the Idaho Office of School Safety and Security (IOSSS), provided Campus Safety with several incidents that actually happened at Idaho schools in the last five years and how administrators responded. The first scenario is below.

According to IOSSS, the purpose of these trainings are:

1. To increase awareness and develop an if-then mindset for both building level and district level administrators
2. To determine if current district and building policy and procedure is adequate to the incident in the exercise
3. To facilitate the updating of district and school policy and procedure for the types of incidents that may occur in schools

Each scenario sets the scene for the day — some details you might not necessarily think make a difference, but they do — and describes the event in detail, along with the actual outcome of the scenario and findings from an after-action review. They are designed to be completed in 10-15 minutes as part of an administrative meeting.

Scenario #1

• Season: Early winter
• Day: Monday
• Time: 4:06 P.M.
• Weather: Overcast and heavy snow predicted
• Temperature: 33 degrees
• School type: Elementary (K-5)
• Event: You are taking a deep breath following just one of those days. The phone rings and a distraught mother of a third-grade daughter and a kindergarten son with autism notifies you that her children should have gotten off the bus 20 minutes ago but have not come home. The students in question get off the bus at the last stop on the route. The family is new to the area, and you are aware from student records that there is a custody issue in progress. What would you do?

How the School Handled the Situation

The school secretary had left the building, so the principal took the mother’s phone number with the assurance they would call back very shortly. He then placed a call to the transportation department asking for route and driver information for the students in question. He then called the SRO stationed at the neighboring high school to notify them of a possible issue. The SRO agreed to come to the elementary school. The transportation director pulled the video recording from the parked bus and called the driver of the route in question to meet with the principal, SRO and transportation director at the school.

The principal called the mother to ask what other steps she may have taken and informed her of the steps the school had instituted. The mother noted that she was deeply concerned that her estranged husband had abducted the children. There was a “no contact” order in place, but the mother had not informed the school. This information was conveyed to the SRO upon his arrival at the school a short time later. He began a law enforcement response to the incident. The SRO asked the mother to come to the school to help review the video recording from the bus camera system.

The bus driver and transportation director arrived at the school, and with the principal and SRO, began reviewing surveillance records. The girl and boy in question were observed exiting the bus at the proper stop. Four other students from three other families were observed exiting the bus at the stop as well. The distraught mother arrived at the school at this point. The transportation department had records for the other students assigned to the stop in question and the principal began to call the families. With the second call, the principal determined that the students in question had gone to another student’s home but did not notify their mother.

The mother was both relieved and somewhat angry. Given this, the principal followed the mother’s car to the home where her children were to assure a positive reunification for all parties. The total time elapsed for this incident from the initial notification of the principal was one hour and 13 minutes.

After-Action Review Findings

To be most effective, says IOSSS, an after-action review (AAR) of the response should be completed as part of the process. Questions that should be used to review the response include but are not limited to:

• Was the response adequate to the magnitude of the incident?
• Did the response fall within your current policy and procedure?
  • If not, should policy or procedure be changed? Who would be responsible for the change, and what is the timeline?
• Is any individual, agency or resource tasked as a part of the response aware of their role, trained to act and available?
  • Do you have a memorandum of understanding (MOU)?
• Is the response capable of translation to operational reality?
• Was communication adequate to the needs of the response? Was everyone who needed to know notified?
• Are there public relations concerns in the incident or response, and are they adequately addressed in the solution?
• Can an operational change be made to mitigate or prevent a future occurrence?

In this case, an AAR of the incident determined everyone involved followed school policy and procedure and the incident was well resolved. The exception is the lack of notification to the school of a “no contact” order. The mother had notified the school at enrollment that there was a custody issue in progress but did not follow up with the school after a “no contact” order was eventually issued.

It is strongly recommended that schools look for ways to establish when “no contact” or other court orders impact school operations.

For more information on ways your school can protect students from child custody disputes, check out this Campus Safety article.

Check Out Some of These Other Tabletop Exercises

• Tabletop Exercise 2: Worsening Odor Leads to Student Asthma Attack
• Tabletop Exercise 3: Loud Voices, Smell of Alcohol Coming from Main Office
• Tabletop Exercise 4: Minivan with 4 Students Rear-ends School Bus
• Tabletop Exercise 5: School Loses Power as Temperature Drops
• Tabletop Exercise 6: Chemistry Teacher Drops Beaker Containing Mercury
• Tabletop Exercise 7: Armed Robber Barricaded in Home Adjacent to School
• Tabletop Exercise 8: Third-Grade Teacher Collapses During Class
• Tabletop Exercise 9: Anonymous Tip Says Student Plans to Bring Weapon to School
• Tabletop Exercise 10: Student Goes Into Anaphylactic Shock
• Tabletop Exercise 11: Student on School Roof Threatens Suicide

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