Tennessee school emergency plan law
What Tennessee requires of school emergency operations plans: who writes one, what goes in it, and how often it's reviewed.
Every fact checked against the official source by an independent reviewer · Last verified October 26, 2026
Does Tennessee require school emergency plans?
Yes. As rewritten by 2023 Pub. Ch. 367, state law requires each LEA (local school district), and each public charter school to the extent it applies, to adopt a comprehensive district-wide school safety plan and building-level school safety plans on crisis intervention, emergency response and emergency management. Private and church-related schools must each adopt a building-level school safety plan. A district or charter school with only one building writes a single building-level plan that also meets every district-wide requirement. This page quotes these duties from the session laws (the acts as passed) and the Department of Education's reproduction of the code.
Who writes the plan?
The plans are developed by a district-wide team and a building-level school safety team, and they must follow the state-level safety team's template. The director of schools appoints the district-wide team, which must include local law enforcement officials (added in 2024). The building principal appoints the building-level team, whose required members include local law enforcement officials and local ambulance or other emergency response agencies. Since July 1, 2023, the commissioner of safety sets up the state-level safety team that publishes the template (a duty that was the commissioner of education's) and directs it (a role that was the school safety center director's).
What must the plan contain?
The minimum contents of the state template are listed in § 49-6-805, and that list is still in force; plans must follow the template.
| The template must include, at a minimum | Source |
|---|---|
| A designated emergency response team | § 49-6-805(1) |
| Communication with law enforcement, parents and guardians in emergencies and incidents or threats of violence | § 49-6-805(2) |
| School building security policies, including SROs and security devices or procedures where appropriate | § 49-6-805(3) |
| Procedures so crisis responders and law enforcement can reach floor plans, blueprints and maps | § 49-6-805(4) |
| Coordination with mental health resources | § 49-6-805(5) |
| Violence prevention and intervention strategies | § 49-6-805(6) |
| Annual school safety training for students, teachers and staff | § 49-6-805(7) |
| Safe evacuation of students, staff and visitors in a serious violent incident or other emergency | § 49-6-805(8) |
| Background checks for anyone giving direct crisis-response services (added 2023) | § 49-6-805(10) |
The Department of Education's current reproduction of the law numbers a cyber security element as subdivision (9) of § 49-6-805. Since 2024, required firearm safety instruction counts toward the annual school safety training element. Safety teams must consider including a mobile panic alert system in the plans. Every LEA, public charter school, private school and church-related school must develop a procedure, with local fire department and law enforcement officials, for finding the cause of a fire alarm, including a possible active shooter. Districts and charter schools must build that fire-alarm procedure into their district-wide and building-level plans; it had to be in place by January 1, 2025, and must be reviewed every year.
How often is the plan reviewed?
Since 2024, each district-wide school safety team and each building-level school safety team must review its plan every year. 2024 Pub. Ch. 864 replaced the earlier sentence that put the annual review on each LEA and charter school. Private and church-related schools must review their plan every year.
Is the plan submitted to anyone?
By each July 1, LEAs and public charter schools must give their plans to local law enforcement with jurisdiction, the Department of Education and the Department of Safety. Each LEA files its district-wide plan and each building-level plan with the commissioner, and files amendments within 30 days of adoption. By each October 1, private and church-related schools must give their building-level plan to each local law enforcement agency with jurisdiction. On request from local law enforcement, the Department of Education or the Department of Safety, LEAs and charter schools must provide other school security plans and records. Each LEA and charter school must send the Department of Safety a yearly school security self-assessment for each school. Executive Order 97 (June 6, 2022) states that LEAs must submit their school safety plans to the Tennessee School Safety Center every year, as § 49-6-4302 requires. The Department of Education's guidance tells districts that plans must be submitted by July 1 each year to local law enforcement, the Department of Education and the Department of Safety.
How do schools work with police and fire?
Local law enforcement sits on both the district-wide and building-level safety teams. LEAs and charter schools must also give the plans to any law enforcement agency or emergency response organization taking part in an armed intruder drill. LEAs and charter schools may share digital school mapping data with first responders; this is allowed, not required. Mapping data that is shared must include accurate floor plans laid over current, verified aerial imagery. Executive Order 97 directed the Tennessee School Safety Center to update the district plan template to name the superintendent, director of schools or another district officer as the district's single point of contact for school safety.
What training and drills are tied to the plan?
Every school safety team, private school and church-related school must run at least one armed intruder drill, one incident command drill and one emergency safety bus drill each year. Each armed intruder drill must be coordinated with the local law enforcement agency, and drill results must be kept by the school for at least five years. All school staff, including substitutes, part-time staff and volunteers, must be trained every year on the fire-alarm procedure. 2023 Pub. Ch. 367 made adopting a threat assessment team mandatory under § 49-6-2701(a), changing "may adopt" to "shall adopt".
Is the plan confidential?
Meetings about school security or the safety plans are exempt from the Open Meetings Act. School security reports, plans and procedures created or received by the Department of Safety are confidential and not open to public inspection. 2023 Pub. Ch. 367 extended the confidentiality provision in § 49-6-808(c) to school building floor plans. Even so, plans may be adopted only after at least one public hearing open to school staff, parents, students and others.
Are there compliance checks or penalties?
If an LEA fails to file its plan, the commissioner may withhold state funds until it complies. The Department of Education reviewed all 147 district safety plans in 2024-25 against a list of plan requirements and reported the share of districts meeting each one. The Department reviews district safety plans every year and school safety plans on a three-year cycle, and its district review checks for shelter-in-place procedures. The state's district and school plan templates include hazard sheets for a list of threats; these templates are guidance.
What changed recently?
2023 Pub. Ch. 367 took effect July 1, 2023, for purposes other than rulemaking; it rewrote the plan duty and extended the filing duty to each building-level plan. As enacted in 2023, the July 1 package also included floor plans for all school buildings; 2024 Pub. Ch. 936, effective on becoming law, deleted that item. SB 0699 / HB 0682 (remote instruction for students after mass violence at their school) was not enacted and did not amend plan requirements.
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 Tennessee's requirements; that reading belongs to your district and its counsel.