Communicating the Standard Response Protocol to Families
The Standard Response Protocol from the I Love U Guys Foundation gives staff and students five actions with unambiguous names: Hold, Secure, Lockdown, Evacuate, Shelter. What it deliberately does not give you is the message to families. Districts adopt SRP, train staff, print the posters, and then send a parent message that still says the school was placed on lockout. This page closes that gap.
| Action | Initiation message | Update message | All-clear message |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hold "In your room or area" | Usually none. If it runs past a period change: "There is a situation in a hallway at [SCHOOL] and students are staying in classrooms while it is handled. Instruction is continuing." | "Students are still in classrooms. Nothing has changed and no one is in danger. Next update by [TIME]." | "Movement in the building is back to normal. Dismissal is on the usual schedule." |
| Secure "Get inside, lock outside doors" | "[SCHOOL] is in Secure. Exterior doors are locked because of [POLICE ACTIVITY NEARBY / A SITUATION OUTSIDE]. There is no threat inside the building. Class is continuing. Please do not come to campus." | "[SCHOOL] is still in Secure at [TIME]. Students are safe and in class. Next update by [TIME]." | "Secure has been lifted at [SCHOOL]. Exterior doors are open and the day is running normally." |
| Lockdown "Locks, lights, out of sight" | "[SCHOOL] is in Lockdown. Students and staff are in secured rooms. Law enforcement is on site. Do not come to campus and do not call the school — lines must stay open. Next update by [TIME]." | "[SCHOOL] remains in Lockdown at [TIME]. [ONLY CONFIRMED FACTS.] We are not able to share more while police are working." | "Lockdown has been lifted. All students and staff are accounted for. [DISMISSAL OR REUNIFICATION INSTRUCTION.] Counsellors are available at [SCHOOL] and families can reach [NAME] at [NUMBER]." |
| Evacuate "To a location" | "Students at [SCHOOL] are being evacuated to [SITE] because of [REASON]. Everyone is accounted for. Do not go to [SCHOOL]. Instructions for collecting your child will follow by [TIME]." | "Students are at [SITE] and safe. Collection will begin at [TIME] at [ENTRANCE]. Bring photo ID." | "All students have been collected or dismissed. [BUILDING STATUS AND TOMORROW'S PLAN.]" |
| Shelter "Hazard and safety strategy" | "[SCHOOL] is sheltering in place for [HAZARD]. Students are inside in [SAFE AREAS] and are safe. Do not come to campus — it is not safe to be outside or to move students right now." | "Shelter continues at [TIME]. Students are safe. [HAZARD STATUS.] Next update by [TIME]." | "Shelter has been lifted. [DISMISSAL PLAN, INCLUDING ANY BUS DELAY.]" |
The grid exists because the update message is the one districts have never written. Initiation and all-clear get drafted; the message that goes out at the promised time when nothing has changed does not, and its absence is what turns a forty-minute Secure into a parent-group emergency. SRP terminology is the I Love U Guys Foundation's; the wording of the family messages here is ours to adapt freely.
Why the parent message is the hard part of SRP
SRP's design goal is that the same five words mean the same five things to a substitute teacher, a bus driver, a responding officer and a twelve-year-old. That works because the vocabulary is small and drilled. Families are drilled in none of it.
The consequence shows up most sharply between Secure and Lockdown. Operationally they are entirely different: Secure means the threat is outside and instruction continues, Lockdown means the threat may be inside and everyone is behind a locked door out of sight. To a parent reading a text at work, both look like something bad is happening at my child's school. If your Secure message does not explicitly say there is no threat inside the building and class is continuing, a meaningful fraction of parents will drive to campus during a police operation. The comparison is set out in full at lockout vs lockdown vs shelter-in-place, and the full letter set is at Secure notification templates.
The second consequence is Hold, which is the action families most often never hear about at all. Hold is a routine classroom-management tool — a medical situation in a corridor, a behavioural incident being resolved — and most Holds warrant no message. Decide your threshold in advance and publish it, because the alternative is a parent hearing about a Hold from a student and concluding it was concealed.
The adoption rollout kit
Adopting SRP is a communications project as much as a safety project. Four documents cover it.
1. The announcement letter, sent in the spring before adoption. Beginning [MONTH], [DISTRICT] is adopting the Standard Response Protocol. It replaces the words we have used for emergency actions with five terms used by thousands of schools and by law enforcement: Hold, Secure, Lockdown, Evacuate and Shelter. Nothing about our safety practices is getting weaker — this is about every adult and student in the building using the same word for the same action, including substitutes and responding officers. Here is what each term means and what you will hear from us when one is used: [FIVE-LINE GLOSSARY]. You will see these terms in drills starting [DATE].
2. A family-night agenda, forty minutes: the five actions with the posters on screen, a walk-through of the exact text message families would receive for each, the reunification process demonstrated rather than described, and fifteen minutes of questions. The single most valuable slide is the Secure message, read aloud, followed by "and this is why you should not drive to the school".
3. A first-year FAQ covering the questions that always come: why the words changed, whether we will be told every time, why we ask families not to come to campus, how students with IEPs and 504 plans are supported during each action, and what happens for students who cannot follow an instruction independently.
4. The transfer-in letter, for families arriving from a district using different terminology: Your previous school may have used terms like lockout, modified lockdown or code yellow. We use the Standard Response Protocol. Here is how the terms map, so nothing you hear from us is unfamiliar: [MAPPING TABLE]. Put it in the enrolment packet permanently rather than sending it once.
What SRP does not cover, and where reunification sits
Being precise about scope prevents districts from assuming a protocol has answered a question it never addressed.
SRP covers the action taken in the building. It does not specify who writes the family message, who approves it, how fast it goes, which channel it uses, or what languages it goes in. Those belong in your crisis communication plan. It also does not cover reunification — that is the Standard Reunification Method, a companion framework from the same foundation, and the family-facing wording for it lives in the reunification templates. An Evacuate message that does not name the reunification site and the ID requirement has stopped short of what families need.
Two further gaps to close locally. SRP does not tell you when a Hold or Secure is significant enough to warrant a message; write that threshold down. And it says nothing about aftermath: the all-clear is not the last message. Anything beyond a routine Hold should be followed within a day by a letter naming what happened, what support is available, on-site counselling hours, who to contact, and the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. The follow-up letter template carries the standard block, and NASP's guidance on supporting students after a crisis is worth reading before you adapt it. Anything on this page is subordinate to your district's own crisis plan, your counsel, and the responding agency's instructions.
Questions people actually ask
Does the Standard Response Protocol include parent messaging?
No. SRP standardises the action taken inside the building — Hold, Secure, Lockdown, Evacuate, Shelter — so that staff, students and responders share one vocabulary. It does not specify who writes the family message, who approves it, how quickly it goes or in what languages. That gap is why districts adopt SRP and then send a message using their old terminology, and it has to be closed in the crisis communication plan.
How do we announce adopting SRP to families?
Send an announcement letter in the term before adoption with a five-line glossary and the date drills begin, hold a forty-minute family night where families see the actual text message they would receive for each action, publish a first-year FAQ, and add a transfer-in letter mapping old terms to new ones into the enrolment packet permanently. The highest-value moment is reading the Secure message aloud and explaining why families should not drive to campus.
What do we send families who transferred from a district using different terms?
A short mapping letter in the enrolment packet: their previous school may have said lockout, modified lockdown or code yellow, and here is which SRP action each corresponds to. It costs one page and it prevents a family experiencing their first Secure message as an unfamiliar emergency. Keep it in the packet permanently rather than sending it once at adoption, because families transfer in every month of the year.
How does SRP terminology change our emergency message wording?
Use the SRP term, then immediately translate it into plain consequence. "[SCHOOL] is in Secure" means nothing on its own to a parent; "exterior doors are locked because of police activity nearby, there is no threat inside the building, class is continuing, please do not come to campus" is the message. The rule is to name the action, name what it means for the child, and name what the parent should do.
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