Active shooter drills in 95% of US schools increase teacher depression by 39% and anxiety by 42%, with only 10% of schools providing follow-up mental health support

95% of US public schools conduct active shooter drills, averaging 2.65 drills per school year. Research shows these drills are associated with a 39% increase in depression, 42% increase in stress and anxiety, and 23% increase in physiological health problems among participants including teachers. Middle school communities experience the steepest impact (55% increase in depression). Yet only 10% of schools provide mental health support to staff or students after drills, and 69% of teachers say the drills do not actually make them feel safer. Why it matters: teachers are subjected to repeated simulated violence scenarios that measurably harm their mental health, so they experience compounding trauma from drills layered on top of the real fear of school shootings (which have increased significantly since Columbine in 1999), so teacher anxiety and hypervigilance reduce their emotional availability for students and instructional effectiveness, so teachers in states with frequent mass shooting events face even higher psychological burden, so the profession becomes less attractive to prospective educators who view physical danger as an unacceptable working condition. The structural root cause is that schools adopted active shooter drills reactively after high-profile mass shootings without evidence that realistic simulation drills improve outcomes, and the National Academies of Sciences (2024 report) found that discussion-based practices are equally effective and far less psychologically harmful, but most districts continue high-intensity drills because they are perceived as 'doing something' and face political pressure to demonstrate visible security measures.