Missouri school emergency plan law

What does Missouri require of school emergency plans?

RSMo 160.480 requires the board of each school district and the governing board of each charter school to adopt a comprehensive emergency operations plan. Before SB 68 (2025), school boards were only authorized, not required, to adopt an emergency preparedness plan; SB 68 made the plan mandatory and renamed it a comprehensive emergency operations plan. The current text of RSMo 160.480 took effect August 28, 2025.

Who must have a plan?

RSMo 160.480 puts the plan duty on school district boards and charter school governing boards only; it does not cover private schools. Under the state's MSIP 6 accreditation rule, the school system develops, carries out and reviews annually a comprehensive school emergency operations plan for the school system and each school or site as applicable, consulting public safety officials and stakeholders.

What must the plan contain?

The plan may let the superintendent or other designated officials approve use of school resources for community relief in an emergency, and any such use is subject to board review within thirty days or as soon as reasonably possible. DESE (Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) must develop standards for emergency operations plans. MSIP 6 also has the school system put in place a cyber and privacy security plan using nationally accepted standards. Separately, each public school must develop and carry out a cardiac emergency response plan.

How often is the plan reviewed?

Under MSIP 6, the school system reviews its emergency operations plan annually. Each district and charter school board must make sure a physical security site assessment is completed at each building every year, and DESE must set standards for that assessment using nationally accepted methods.

Is the plan submitted, and to whom?

The plan must be shared with local law enforcement, fire protection providers and emergency management. That sharing duty names only those three; it sets no deadline, no format and no filing with DESE. DESE's role is to write plan standards and make sure every year that plans are adopted; the statute does not require districts to send the plan to DESE.

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

The plan must address collaboration with local law enforcement, fire protection providers and emergency management, and be shared with them. DESE advises districts to work proactively with local law enforcement, fire departments, health departments and community groups on safety and emergency planning. Each district must designate a primary and secondary school safety coordinator, and the state board must add this to its accreditation criteria by July 1, 2026.

What training goes with the plan?

Each district must require its safety coordinators, and other designated staff as needed, to complete, within one calendar year of being named, one of the trainings the statute lists, such as the MSBA (Missouri School Boards' Association) Center for Education Safety's Incident Command System for Schools course. From 2026-27, district and charter teacher and employee training must include emergency protocols for evacuations, severe weather, earthquakes, fire and medical emergencies. From the 2026-27 school year, each district and charter school must hold an age-appropriate active shooter exercise in which students, teachers and other staff practice the safety procedures.

Is the plan confidential?

Missouri's Sunshine Law lets public bodies close records in listed categories. One category is operational guidelines, policies and response plans of agencies responsible for law enforcement, public safety, first response or public health. Another lets a public body close security systems and structural plans of property it owns or leases, but only where disclosure would threaten public safety.

How is it checked?

DESE must make sure every year that districts and charter schools have adopted a plan. DESE requires every district to complete a yearly District Assurance Checklist, and one item asks the district to assure it has adopted a comprehensive emergency operations plan under RSMo 160.480. The 2025-26 checklist was due December 19, 2025. School safety is an MSIP 6 accreditation standard (L10) that districts are assessed against. DESE's MSIP 6 guide says a district's accreditation classification may be lowered at any time for failure to comply with the law.

What changed recently?

SB 68 was approved by the Governor on July 9, 2025, with an effective date of August 28, 2025. RSMo 160.480 was enacted in 2004 (HB 1070) and amended in 2025 (SB 68). 2026 HB 1866, approved May 6, 2026, last amended RSMo 170.315; the current version, which includes the active shooter exercise, took effect August 28, 2026. As of October 27, 2026, no bills are listed yet for the 2027 session.