Wisconsin school emergency plan law
What Wisconsin 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 Wisconsin require school emergency plans?
Yes. Wis. Stat. § 118.07(4) requires each public school board and the governing body of each private school to have a school safety plan in effect. The plan must include an individualized safety plan for each school building and facility regularly used by students, covering related property students regularly use. The duty names school boards and private school governing bodies only; it does not name charter schools or their operators.
Who writes the plan?
The plan must be created with the active participation of appropriate parties chosen by the school board or private school governing body. Those parties may include the Department of Justice, local law enforcement, fire fighters, administrators, teachers, pupil services professionals and mental health professionals; including them is optional. Before creating or updating the plan, the board must do an on-site safety assessment of each building, site and facility regularly used by students, in consultation with a local law enforcement agency. That assessment must include playgrounds, athletic facilities or fields, and other property regularly used by students.
What must the plan contain?
The plan must include general guidelines for emergency prevention and mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. It must include guidelines and procedures for school violence and attacks and threats of them, bomb threats, fire, weather emergencies, intruders, parent-student reunification, and threats to non-classroom events. Those non-classroom events include recess, concerts and other performances, athletic events and other extracurricular activities. It must include the process for reviewing how the drills the plan requires are conducted, and school safety drills must be based on the plan.
| A plan may not | Source |
|---|---|
| Require an employee to contact an administrator or anyone else before calling 911 | § 118.07(4)(cm)1. |
| Bar an employee from reporting school violence, or a threat of it, directly to law enforcement | § 118.07(4)(cm)2. |
| Bar an employee from reporting a suspicious person or activity directly to law enforcement | § 118.07(4)(cm)3. |
How often is the plan reviewed?
The board must review and approve the school safety plan at least once every 3 years after it takes effect.
Is the plan submitted to anyone?
Before each January 1, each school board and private school governing body must file a copy of its school safety plan with the Office of School Safety.
| With the plan, the board must report | Source |
|---|---|
| The date(s) of the prior year's annual school violence drill(s) | § 118.07(4)(e)1. |
| A certification that the written evaluations of those drills were reviewed | § 118.07(4)(e)2. |
| The date of the most recent school safety training and the number who attended | § 118.07(4)(e)3. |
| The most recent date it reviewed and approved the plan | § 118.07(4)(e)4. |
| The most recent date it consulted local law enforcement on the on-site safety assessments | § 118.07(4)(e)5. |
When a plan is created and at each review, a school board must send the most recent blueprints or interactive critical mapping data for each building to each local law enforcement agency with jurisdiction and to the Office of School Safety. A private school's governing body must send the same blueprints or mapping data to local law enforcement and the Office of School Safety. Department of Justice guidance says this submission duty applies to all schools, whether or not they applied for grant funds. The guidance lists five required yearly submissions, made through SharePoint: Blueprint/Maps, Safety Assessments, Safety Plans, School Safety Training and Violence Drills.
What training and drills are tied to the plan?
At each building regularly used by students, students must be drilled at least once a year in responding to a school violence event, following that building's plan. The board decides who must receive school safety plan training and how often, and the training must be based on the district's or private school's prioritized needs, risks and vulnerabilities. The Office of School Safety must offer, or contract to offer, school safety training to school staff. The Office, together with the Department of Public Instruction, must create model practices for school safety.
Is the plan confidential?
The Office of School Safety must keep the blueprints and mapping data confidential unless a law enforcement agency asks for access. That is the Office's only confidentiality duty in § 165.28; it covers the blueprints and mapping data, not the school safety plan itself.
Is there funding tied to the plan?
A Department of Justice school safety grant application must include specified items, the first of which is a school safety plan. The Department awards grants to help school boards and private schools submit interactive critical mapping data.
What changed recently?
2023 Wisconsin Act 199 defined critical mapping data for school safety plans. The statute text this page relies on is current through 2025 Wisconsin Act 247. 2025 SB 836 would have amended the plan duty to address school lockdown announcements; it failed to pass on March 23, 2026, as did its Assembly companion, AB 827. 2025 AB 826 would have required plans to include procedures for telling students and families that an event occurred and for debriefing students, families and staff afterward; it failed to pass on March 23, 2026, as did its Senate companion, SB 835. 2025 AB 362 would have required cardiac emergency response plans for school property and school-sponsored athletic events; the Senate failed to concur in it on March 23, 2026.
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 Wisconsin's requirements; that reading belongs to your district and its counsel.