Arkansas school emergency plan law

What does Arkansas law require of school emergency operations plans?

Arkansas law requires each district and open-enrollment public charter school to form District Safety and Security Teams that review district emergency operations plans and security policies and procedures. Since the 2025-2026 school year, it also requires each school to develop and carry out a protocol within its emergency operations plan that addresses a cardiac emergency response plan. A school must add the cardiac requirements at the next scheduled revision of its emergency operations plan, and no later than the 2026-2027 school year. Act 648 of 2021 struck the older Safe Schools Initiative Act sentence that required each district to develop a school safety plan; the current § 6-15-1303, rewritten again in 2023, has no such sentence. The state school safety rule repeats the duty for district safety and security teams to review district emergency operations plans, and counts open-enrollment charter schools as districts.

What must the cardiac emergency response plan include?

School officials must work directly with local emergency service providers to integrate the cardiac plan. Appropriate school staff must be trained in first aid, CPR and AED (defibrillator) use. The Department of Education may set up a way to check that schools follow the cardiac plan requirements. This is allowed, not required.

What other safety planning does the law require?

Each district and charter school must set up and keep a comprehensive, common communication plan. Each district and charter school must set up a behavioral threat assessment team, and its members must receive basic and advanced behavioral threat assessment training. In planning lockdown drills, a district or charter school must identify each staff member's and student's roles in an emergency, and where the school's emergency operations plan may need to change.

How often are plans reviewed?

The law requires a comprehensive school safety assessment every three years, reviewed by the district board of directors and administration. The state rule says the same: a district must conduct the assessment at least once every three years, and it must include a review of emergency operations plans. The first assessment had to be done by August 1, 2024. State Department of Education guidance recommends, but does not require, reviewing and updating the plan every year or after major changes.

What goes to first responders?

By October 1, 2021, each public school had to give current floor plans and emergency contact information to the right first responders. School administrators must update that floor plan and contact information every year and when the building changes substantially. The state rule requires a district to give current floor plans and emergency contact information for each school to first responders, and the superintendent must send written confirmation that it was done. In planning lockdown drills, a district or charter school must work with local law enforcement, medical professionals, and fire and emergency management officials. The superintendent must send written confirmation, through the yearly statement of assurance, that the safety assessment has been completed.

What training is tied to the plan?

The Department of Education must make crisis response training available to school staff and other key groups statewide. Each district and charter school must train school nurses and staff to strengthen emergency medical response, including opioid overdose and bleeding control training.

What is kept confidential?

The comprehensive school safety assessment is not a public record and is not open to inspection under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act. A district board may discuss the assessment results only in a closed (executive) session. Floor plan and emergency contact information given to first responders is not a public record.

How is it enforced?

A state accreditation standard requires each district to adopt and carry out school safety policies and procedures under Arkansas law and state rules.

What state guidance is there?

In January 2025 the Division of Elementary and Secondary Education released an optional Emergency Operations Plan template for districts. It describes the template as a framework for responding to emergencies from natural disasters to security incidents.

What changed recently?

Act 352 of 2025 (HB1398), which added the cardiac emergency response plan protocol, was approved on March 20, 2025. HB1492 of 2025, a mobile panic alert system bill, was withdrawn by its author. The 2026 fiscal session's House and Senate bill lists show no school safety or emergency plan bill; every bill was an appropriation except two revenue stabilization bills and a homestead property tax credit bill.