Alabama school emergency plan law

Who must have an emergency operations plan in Alabama?

Alabama law requires each local board of education to develop and adopt a comprehensive school emergency operations plan for each school under its authority. The local board, or someone acting for it, must examine each school's conditions and operations to find hazards to student and staff safety. The School Security Act defines the school emergency operations plan as the plan each local board adopts under § 16-1-44, and defines a school as any public K-12 school. The statute that lists which state education laws private schools must follow names school attendance, the Child Protection Act and background checks; it does not list § 16-1-44. Private K-12 schools are not subject to licensure or regulation by the state, including the State Department of Education.

What must the plan contain?

The plan must cover security threats in a school lockdown plan, fire threats in a fire safety plan, and severe weather threats in a severe weather safety plan. It must also include a protocol for responding to emergencies that put school property, students and employees at risk. Each protocol must include steps for notifying and responding, such as calling law enforcement and emergency responders and informing parents of affected students. Each plan must include and use four alert levels, each with set steps for notification, action and procedures that school staff follow.

The principal or a designee must name places to shelter students during a severe weather watch, alert or warning. When there is an immediate threat of violence, whoever sees the threat, or that individual's designee, may start a lockdown alert level for the school. This is allowed, not required.

How often must the plan be reviewed?

The plan must be reviewed and revised every year, as needed, by the local board, working with the principal, administrators, teachers and other staff of the school. The board must also update the plan whenever a major building change requires new procedures, and at other times when needed. Each district safety coordinator must review every school's emergency operations plan each year. By September 1 each year, the coordinator must tell the superintendent about any school without a current, up-to-date plan. The superintendent must then make sure the plan is updated within 30 days.

Who is the district safety coordinator?

Each local board must name a central-office employee as the district safety coordinator. Within one year of being named, the coordinator must complete training that includes emergency operations plan implementation; relocation, evacuation and reunification; and behavioral threat assessment. The coordinator must attend at least four safety training sessions a year, with no more than one credit for a vendor-run session. The State Board of Education must adopt rules on the coordinator's qualifications and training.

Is the plan submitted or shared?

The local board must give a copy of the current plan to law enforcement or safety officials when they ask for one. That is the only part of § 16-1-44 on handing over the plan: it sets no filing with the State Department of Education and no deadline. State Department of Education memos, which are guidance, ask district administrators to address required safety measures through its Emergency Operations Planning platform in nSide, and to record required safety trainings there. That guidance lists school floor plans and mapping, Incident Command System roles and hazard-specific annexes (sections for each type of hazard) as core planning parts.

How do schools work with police, fire and emergency management?

In writing each school's plan, the local board must involve local law enforcement and safety officials, including the fire and emergency management officials assigned to the school. The board must give law enforcement and fire department staff access to each school so they can prepare to respond to threats and emergencies. Each year the district safety coordinator must hold a meeting at each school with administrators and local public safety officials, to walk them through the school, its emergency operations plan and its mapping data. At least one representative of the local emergency management agency office must attend that meeting. A School Mapping Data Program in ALEA (the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency) provides maps of each school for use in an emergency. ALEA must work with local boards to produce mapping data for each school, if funds are appropriated for it. The data must include floor plans laid over current, verified aerial images of the campus. The mapping data must be given to each local board, local law enforcement agency and public safety agency for use in emergencies.

What training is tied to the plan?

The principal or a designee must hold a training session each year for school employees on the school lockdown plan, drills and procedures. That yearly training must include mental health awareness.

Is the plan confidential?

The plan must be kept in a secure place and is not a public record. School security rubric ratings and school mapping data, including the records used to build them, are confidential and not public records.

How is it enforced?

A principal or designee who knowingly neglects or refuses to follow § 16-1-44 faces appropriate disciplinary action. The State Board must require a school security inspector to inspect each local board's school buildings at least once every five years. The State Board may award grants to help local boards meet the school security criteria. The School Security Act creates no private right of action (a right for an outside party to sue) against a local board, its officials or its employees.

What changed recently?

Chapter 16-22B of the Code is the School Security Act, enacted as Act 2024-356. § 16-1-44 comes from Act 2009-655 and was amended in 2013, 2019 and 2021. The official Code shows no amendment to § 16-1-44 after Act 2021-424, so nothing in 2025 or 2026 changed it. 2026 HB187 (Alyssa's Law: mobile emergency rapid response systems) never left committee in its house of origin; its last official action is dated January 13, 2026, and it has no act number. 2026 SB353, on the same subject, never left committee in its house of origin; its last official action is dated March 10, 2026, and it has no act number. 2025 HB234 (Alyssa's Law) stopped at a second reading in the second house and has no act number.