District of Columbia school emergency plan law
What the District of Columbia requires of school emergency plans: who must have one, what goes in it, and who it's shared with.
Every fact checked against the official source by an independent reviewer · Last verified October 26, 2026
Who must have an emergency operations plan in D.C.?
D.C. law requires DC Public Schools (DCPS) to create and carry out school building security and emergency operations plans. That duty covers DCPS only, not public charter or private schools. DCPS must write those plans in consultation with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and the Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. The duty was added by D.C. Law 23-149, effective December 3, 2020. Separately, every school, covering DCPS, public charter, independent, private and parochial schools, had to adopt and carry out a cardiac emergency response plan (CERP) by the start of the 2025-2026 school year.
What does the cardiac emergency response plan require?
A CERP is a written plan setting out the specific steps to reduce deaths from cardiac arrest. Each school must have at least one AED (defibrillator) on site, in a place named in its CERP. At least once a year, schools must tell all employees where each AED is and give them the school's CERP. Newly hired staff in listed roles, such as coaches, school nurses and designated AED users, must complete a CPR and AED program within 60 days of being hired. The Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department (FEMS), with the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE), must write a model CERP and make it available to schools. The model CERP must include guidance on a yearly review of the plan, on communicating with FEMS and other emergency medical services during a cardiac arrest, and on practicing the plan through drills. The Mayor must set up a way to monitor whether schools follow the CERP and AED rules.
How does DCPS work with police?
DCPS and MPD had to sign a memorandum of agreement by October 1, 2020 to coordinate security at DCPS schools. That agreement must provide for MPD advice on DCPS school building security and emergency operations plans. Under it, incident command (the chain of command in an emergency) must be consistent with the District of Columbia response plan.
What does D.C. guidance say about emergency response plans?
The Deputy Mayor for Education's School Safety Office publishes a School Emergency Preparedness and Response Playbook (revised 2025) as a framework for D.C. schools to create and update emergency response plans (ERPs). The Playbook is addressed to public, charter and private schools. The D.C. Fire Code (2017) is the 2015 International Fire Code as amended by 12-H DCMR. The Playbook says the D.C. Fire Code requires schools to create a site-specific emergency response plan.
| The Playbook's guidance says the plan | Source |
|---|---|
| Is written by a School Emergency Response Team, which also trains staff on it | DME Playbook, Section II |
| Includes a designated chain of command | DME Playbook, Section II |
| Sets procedures to accommodate, protect and evacuate students and staff | DME Playbook, Section II |
| Provides for sheltering in place for 12 to 24 hours | DME Playbook, Section II |
| Provides multiple evacuation routes and meeting points | DME Playbook, Section II |
| Is available in accessible languages and formats such as braille and large print | DME Playbook, Section II |
| Covers the return to normal teaching and learning | DME Playbook, Section II |
The Playbook also says schools develop a student-parent reunification plan. It says administrators, with student support staff, assess threats and rate them Low, Medium or High. It says schools should review and update the plan regularly, without a fixed interval. It lists yearly safety training for all staff as a guideline. It says monthly School Emergency Response Team meetings should include law enforcement and first responders. It says DCPS and DC Public Charter School Board representatives acknowledge schools' CERPs every year.
Is the plan submitted or shared?
The Playbook tells each school to submit a copy of its emergency response plan through the CORE DC web application by the start of each school year. It says one evacuation map from each floor is submitted in CORE DC, and that site plans are kept ready and shared with first responders. For the 2024-25 school year, OSSE's start-of-school page said DCPS and the DC Public Charter School Board both required emergency response plans, submitted every school year. For that year, OSSE said each DC public and public charter school had to submit its plan to CORE DC by October 31, 2024. OSSE's 2024-25 page said a campus without an emergency response plan on file in CORE DC would fail its DC Fire and EMS fire inspection.
Is the plan confidential?
D.C.'s Freedom of Information Act lets some records be withheld. One exemption covers specific response plans and vulnerability assessments meant to prevent or reduce terrorism; it is general and does not name schools.
What changed recently?
The CERP law, D.C. Law 25-254 (introduced as Bill 25-570), took effect December 17, 2024. Bill 25-234, the School Safety Enhancement Amendment Act of 2023, would have had OSSE create guidelines for reviewing and improving school safety plans. Its last recorded action is a public hearing on January 11, 2024; the Council's records show no markup, vote or enactment after that, and Council Period 25 has closed.
How can QuickSecure help?
SOPs keeps your emergency operations plan and procedures in one place, and staff can open them from their phones.
Each procedure keeps its version history, so you can see what changed and when.
You choose which roles can see each procedure, and staff confirm they've read it, so you can see who has.
During an Alert, your procedures become step-by-step checklists for each staff member.
This is not a statement that any product satisfies District of Columbia's requirements; that reading belongs to your district and its counsel.