Nineteen children and two adults lost their lives on May 24, 2022 at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX. Most of the media attention after this massacre focused on the breakdown in law enforcement communications and response that allowed the killing to continue for 77 minutes after the first officers arrived at the school. Those of us involved in school safety have nothing to do with how law enforcement responds to an incident such as this, but we must take responsibility for actions we can take pre-incident that can not only assist law enforcement in their response, but possibly keep an armed intruder from carrying out a school attack in the first place.

The U.S. Department of Justice released its After Action Review (AAR) report titled “Critical Incident Review: Active Shooter at Robb Elementary School” in March of 2024. This is one of the most comprehensive AAR reports I’ve read in the 42 years I’ve been involved in public safety. Although much of the report deals with the law enforcement response problems, twenty-one pages in Chapter 7 deal with School Safety and Security at Robb Elementary School and in the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District (UCISD) in general. The entire report is open-source information and available for free on-line. I will caution that parts of this report are disturbing due to the factual nature of AAR’s, but Chapter 7 is a must read section for anyone playing a role in school safety.

The intent of this blog is not to point fingers at the staff of Robb Elementary School or within UCISD, because everything referenced in the DOJ AAR are things our assessment teams see in schools all the time when performing Hazard and Vulnerability Assessments. This is especially true in older schools that were built in times when the main concern was keeping student in schools, not keeping evil out of them.

The full report offers observations and recommendations schools can use to address areas of vulnerabilities identified during the DOJ AAR, but there are far too many to reprint here. I will list some of the most important ones here for informational purposes, as all schools should address these:

• UCISD had a policy in place at the time of the killings that all perimeter doors should be locked during the school day. Officers responding to the school on the day of the killings found all perimeter doors unlocked, including the rear door the killer made entry into the school through.
• Classroom doors required keys to lock them from the exterior. There was also no way for a teacher inside the room to visually tell if the door was locked or unlocked. Since door locks in schools are required under fire codes to open from the interior when in the locked position, the only way for teachers to tell if the doors were locked was to open them and try the handle. Because of this, there was a policy in place to keep all classroom doors locked. The AAR identified a staff culture of complacency regarding locking perimeter and classroom doors. The doors to both rooms 111 and 112 where all the killings took place were unlocked. Officers clearing rooms found an additional eight classroom doors unlocked with students and staff inside the rooms. The recommendation in the AAR is for schools to retrofit classroom door locks so they can be locked from the interior without using keys.
• There was no system in place to get master keys to law enforcement, and the school did not have one single master key that would open all doors. Re-keying all doors to work off on one master key, and then putting a system in place to get master keys to first responders was recommended.
• School districts in Texas, as with most states, are required to have campus safety teams in place. The teams are responsible for annual review of Emergency Operations and Response Plans. The AAR found the campus safety teams in UCISD met infrequently and did not review emergency plans for the schools.
• The AAR determined in Observation #5 the existing Emergency Operations Plans in the district were “based largely on templated information that was, at times, inaccurate.” The plans used in the school are footnoted and named in footnote 1071 in Chapter 7 page 335 of the report. The existing plans were also determined to not be in compliance with the National Incident Management System (NIMS). Compliance with NIMS and use of the Incident Command System are requirements for school districts under Homeland Presidential Security Directive 5 since July 1, 2005. Unfortunately, we see the same Emergency Operations and Response Plans used in UCISD in multiple schools and school districts when performing assessments and reviews because they are easy to use, and cheap, which are not good foundations for school safety planning. School Emergency Operations and Response Plans should be written by subject matter experts familiar with both school and emergency services response procedures in order to ensure effectiveness and compliance. Non-compliant emergency plans have been found in several school Mass Casualty Incidents.
• A mass notification alert system App was used for emergency alerts in UCISD, including at Robb Elementary School on the day of the killings. The company owning this system will not be named here, but it is referenced multiple times in the AAR report. Chapter 7 p. 345 of the report identifies problems with the alert system due to inadequate staff training and problems in the school with cell service. Since the alerts go to staff cell phones, any staff members with poor cell service did not get the alerts. Figure 7-5 on p. 346 of the report shows a display of the emergency alert that went out to staff on the day of the killings. The alert message advises staff of a lockdown, but not the reason. It also advises staff to log into the emergency management system to find out “Their immediate tasks.” There is no time to log into a system in a life and death emergency incident response such as this. A person either knows what to do through a second nature response based on pre-incident planning and training, or they don’t. The AAR attributes a lack of training as a causal factor for the unlocked classroom and perimeter doors at Robb Elementary School the day of the killings.
• There were staff members supervising students outside the school when the killings started and the emergency alert went out. Since the alert told staff to go into Lockdown, teachers brought students back into the school instead of moving them away from the danger. An effective Active Assailant Response plan instructs staff to move students away from danger and use Lockdown Alternatives such as Run-Hide-Fight. Lack of proper information caused staff t move students back into a position of danger when they could have moved them away from the school to a position of safety. The App used at the school was designed to supplement the existing Public Address system, not replace it. There was no policy in place to do a P.A. announcement in addition to using the notification App.
• The mass notification App was used improperly within the district 106 times in the months leading up to the Robb Elementary School killings. The system was used to announce lockdowns due to Border Patrol pursuits referred to as bailouts in the area of the school. Since there is a heavy border patrol activity in the area, these reportedly occur quite often. Some staff members interviewed during the AAR process said they got the alert, but figured it was another Border Patrol pursuit.
• The killer was using a high powered rifle, and some rounds penetrated an adjacent wall to another classroom. A teacher in that room was struck with a round, but she did not die. It is an unreal expectation to retrofit interior walls of schools, but it is important for staff to understand that this is a real possibility due to the construction of a building. This is something what would be identified during a Hazard and Vulnerability Assessment conducted by a subject matter expert. This area of vulnerability can be mitigated through the use of the “Safe Corner” concept and positioning of furniture or interior safe rooms.
• Inadequate mapping of the school was cited in the report as a causal factor in the delayed law enforcement entry into the classroom where the killings took place. The maps law enforcement had were basic evacuation route maps and did not show an adjoining door between classrooms 111 and 112. Had officers known about the adjoining door, it would have given them multiple response options for entering the room and incapacitating the suspect. A sample of a map considered to be a bare minimum for response plans is offered on p. 99 of the DOJ report. It is the responsibility of the school and district to provide law enforcement with adequate mapping.

These are some of the areas of responsibility schools can address. A proactive school or school district addresses these areas of vulnerability BEFORE a bad thing happens in a school, not after. We can’t blame law enforcement for what happens in a school before they get there. Responding to a bad thing in a school is their job. Preparing for it and taking mitigation efforts is a job for all of us involved in school safety. It’s just a change of mindset. And to quote my good friend and colleague Sergeant Will Chapman from Newtown, CT. Police Department, “We can change mindsets for free…”

 To drive home the importance of school safety and having the involvement of all stakeholders in properly preparing for manmade and natural hazards in schools pre-incident through planning and training, I’ll close this blog with reprinting words of a 10-year old caller to 9-1-1 on a cell phone from inside one of the classrooms where the killings took place at Robb Elementary School:

“Help!” “Help!” “Help!” “I don’t want to die. My teacher is dead.” “One of my teachers is still alive but shot.” “Officer!” “Officer!” “Are they [officers] in the building?” “There is a lot of dead bodies.”

Those words are written on p. 1 in the Introduction Section of the DOJ After Action Review report. They start the report with those words in order to evoke a response from the reader. It worked on me. Every time I read those words I get angry, and anger fuels my fire to keep things moving forward in school safety. Get angry with me, and let’s do our best to keep this from happening again. We owe it to the kids…

Stay Safe!

Jeff Kaye, President

School Safety Operations Inc.

Click Here for the DOJ Report