14 Mandi Murphy, Ed.D. the beginning of the year. Teachers also shared that all communication about security, safety, and expectations is top-down only. Ultimately, most respondents do not feel prepared to respond to an active shooter event. Research Question 2 (RQ2) What are the active shooter training methods that teachers perceive as best practices? Teachers want specific training without students being present. Teachers’ specific needs on campuses included the implementation of situational training that results in physical action and communication amongst staff. Every single participant agreed with each other that simulations, tabletops, and exercises are not appropriate for students. Teachers wanted to focus solely on learning during the simulations without also worrying about students’ fears of the unknown. The theme of “specific training” also identified teachers’ desires to hear positive and negative feedback about their responses from leadership. This accountability included trusting their leader, such as their principal and assistant principal, to communicate with them. Also, participants identified the importance of learning from their mistakes. Teachers want to learn from feedback about their mistakes and improve their confidence in learning about how to respond to an active shooter. Research Question 3 (RQ3) What are teachers’ perceptions about armed staff? Research findings demonstrated that all participants agreed that someone should be armed on every campus. All respondents believe the best way to stop an active school shooter is with a trained shooter responding as quickly as possible. They believed this would be a decision based on district capacity but does not replace the importance of teachers’ training. Teachers also felt empowered when action training, such as mock training, included armed staff and teachers at the same time. Seventy-five percent of the teachers had not been in a mock scenario with armed staff, a school resource officer, or Independent School District police. Confidence in Responding There is no documented evidence to suggest that a specific system is always effective at preparing a teacher to respond to an active shooter event; however, there are documented specific practices that schools are mandated in Texas to complete (Texas School Safety, 2020). The current study shows that the processes and procedures in Texas schools are not meeting the needs of teachers to prepare them to respond to an active shooter event. The current study also indicates that teachers want more comprehensive and action-based training without students. Interview data indicated that teachers view drills as important; however, they do not feel they have the opportunity to practice, without students, in an action/scenario learning environment to be best prepared. Findings from the current study support prior research findings. Ludwig (2016) found that repeating training and preparing consistently will decrease the time for a team of teachers to respond in an actual incident. Best Practices Much like instructional expectations for teachers to deliver learning opportunities to students, teachers want the same learning opportunities about safety. In the current study, teachers want to know the “why” and background information for safety. They want to actively participate in situational and specific training. They also want to be able to learn from their mistakes, and they want to be able to communicate with armed security, their leadership, and the staff that will be making decisions in the moment of an active shooter event. Teachers continually addressed the relevancy of scenario training and the importance of the action. “What if” was a common thread during discussions about best practices. The lack of time and follow-through for training seemed to be an ever-expanding concern. According to the data generated in the current study, teachers felt realistic, active, scenario-based training increases their confidence in their abilities to respond to an active shooter. Findings from the current study support research in best practices. These findings also demonstrate a significant need to increase the trainings to include scenario-based trainings (Lacoe, 2020; Lauck, 2016). Armed Staff For the last decade, armed staff has become a more consistent policy in P–12 Texas schools. Teachers
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