Emergency Preparedness
Noble Public Schools · Emergency Preparedness
How Noble Responds in an Emergency
Noble Public Schools uses the Standard Response Protocol — five plain-language actions used by schools and first responders across the country. The point is that everyone, including you, knows what a word means the moment you hear it: what is happening, what the school is doing, and what you should do.
The Five Actions
How We Practice
If You Get the Alert
If Your Child Calls
Reunification
Preventing Violence
Checking Our Buildings
Where It Began
Plans and Documents
The Standard Response Protocol
Five actions, and each one has a directive that never changes — so it means the same thing in every Noble building, and the same thing to the police officers and firefighters responding.
These are the same five icons and colors used on the posters in Noble classrooms and on the handout below.
The poster displayed in Noble classrooms. Print a copy for the fridge if it helps.
Hold
In Your Room or Area
Students stay put and the hallways stay clear. Class continues as usual. Used for something that needs the halls empty for a while — a medical situation, an altercation, unfinished maintenance.
Secure
Get Inside. Lock Outside Doors
Everyone comes indoors and exterior doors are locked. Business continues inside as normal. Used for a concern outside the building — an unauthorized person on the grounds, police activity nearby, a dangerous animal.
Lockdown
Locks, Lights, Out of Sight
Rooms are locked, lights go out, and everyone stays quiet and out of sight. Used for a threat inside the building.
Evacuate
To the Announced Location
Students and staff move together to a stated location. Used for something that makes the building unsafe — a gas leak, a fire, a power or mechanical failure, a bomb threat.
Shelter
State the Hazard and Safety Strategy
The hazard is named and everyone takes the matching safety strategy. Used for environmental hazards — severe weather most often in Oklahoma, or a hazardous material situation.
Hold, Secure and Lockdown are three different things — this is the point families most often mix up, and it is worth thirty seconds. Hold clears the hallways but the building carries on as normal. Secure locks the outside doors because of something happening outside, while class continues inside. Lockdown is the most restrictive, used for a threat inside the building: rooms locked, lights off, everyone quiet and out of sight.
These are the Foundation's own materials, free to download. The poster is the same one posted in Noble classrooms, so it is worth a look before you need it. Materials are published in Spanish and several other languages — see the Foundation's resource page.
Watch: the protocol in four minutes
The Foundation's own explanation of the five actions. Worth watching once as a family — it is the clearest version of this that exists.
Talking about this with younger children
Drills can worry small children, and the Foundation's guiding phrase for how they should be run is a good one for conversations at home too: prepared, not scared.
For Pre-K through 2nd grade there are picture-book materials built around familiar helpers and gentle conversation, designed to teach the actions without fear — useful for families at Katherine I. Daily and John K. Hubbard. They are on the Foundation's SRP page under the PreK-2 resources.
Noble formally adopted this protocol — it is not just a poster. The Superintendent signed a memorandum of understanding with the "I Love U Guys" Foundation, which commits the district to using the five actions and their directives exactly as written, to teaching them to students and staff at least once every school year, and to drilling each one.
How Often We Practice
Knowing what a word means only helps if the building has done it before. Oklahoma sets a legal minimum for school safety drills, and every Noble campus runs them on this schedule.
| Evacuation — fire | Twice a year, one near the start of each semester. |
| Security — Secure and Lockdown | Four a year, up to two each semester. State law requires that no two fall at the same time of day in the same year, so students practice at different points in the day. |
| Severe weather | Twice a year. |
| Bus evacuation | Once each semester, within the first fifteen days. |
| CPR and AED response | At least once a year for each campus response team. |
The minimums are set by 70 O.S. § 5-148 for security drills and § 5-149 for fire and severe weather drills. Districts keep a record of every drill for at least three years.
Drills are run to be calm, not frightening. If a drill has worried your student, tell their teacher or counselor — that is useful for us to know, and there is more below on talking about this with younger children.
Severe Weather
In Oklahoma this is the hazard schools plan for most often, and it is the one families ask about most.
- Every campus has designated sheltering areas — the most protective interior spaces that building has. Staff know where they are and take students there, and students practice going to them.
- We do not publish which rooms they are. Which space is used depends on the building and on the kind of warning, and publishing a list would send families to a door instead of to safety.
- Please do not drive to the school during a warning. A car is the most dangerous place to be in severe weather, and arriving during a warning puts you, your student and staff outside at the worst moment. Students are safer where they are.
- We will tell you when it is over — through ParentSquare, including whether dismissal is delayed.
How staff call for help
Any Noble staff member can start an emergency call from their phone. The district uses the Rave panic alert app, so a teacher who needs help does not have to find a phone, remember a number, or explain where they are — help is summoned and the right people are notified at the same time.
Oklahoma has required every district to have a system like this since 2024.
If You Get an Alert From Us
Notifications go out through ParentSquare — text, email and phone call. The most useful thing you can do right now is make sure the phone number and email in PowerSchool are current, because that is what ParentSquare uses.
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Read the whole message
It will name the action — Hold, Secure, Lockdown, Evacuate or Shelter — and tell you what it means for your student and what to do next.
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Wait for the follow-up before acting
A first message during an incident is rarely the last one. If we need you to go somewhere, we will tell you where.
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Trust the district's message over social media
What circulates on Facebook and in group texts during an incident is very often wrong, and it spreads faster than we can correct it. Please do not repeat or forward anything we have not confirmed.
If Your Child Calls or Texts You During a Lockdown
Please do not call or text your student
During a Lockdown, students are asked to keep phones silent and dark and to stay out of sight. A phone that lights up or buzzes can give away where a room full of children is hiding. It is the hardest thing we will ever ask of you, and it is the thing that matters most.
Should I come to the school?Please don't — not until we ask you to
Arriving during an incident puts you in the way of the officers and paramedics who are trying to get in, and it puts you at risk. It also means staff have to manage a crowd at the doors instead of the students inside. We will tell you when and where to come.
Can I call the school office?No one will be able to answer
Office staff are following the same protocol as the students. Phone lines also have to stay clear for emergency responders. Watch ParentSquare instead — that is where information will come from, and it will reach you faster than a phone call would.
My child texted me. Should I text back?Not during the incident
We understand entirely why you would want to. But every reply makes their phone light up or vibrate again. Let them know later, at reunification, that you had their message the whole time.
Is what I'm seeing online accurate?Often not
News reports and social media posts during an active incident are frequently wrong in the first hour, including about which school is involved. Please do not pass along anything the district has not confirmed — families of other students are reading it too.
Something you can do todayTwo minutes, and it matters later
Check that your emergency contacts in PowerSchool are current and complete. In an emergency, students are released only to a parent, guardian or emergency contact already on file — there are no exceptions made in the moment, even for a grandparent or a family friend everyone knows.
If someone other than you might collect your child, agree a family code word now, so your student knows that person is genuinely authorized.
Reunification — Getting Your Student Back
If students ever have to be moved off campus, families are reunited with them through a controlled check-out rather than a crowd at a door. It is slower than you want it to be, and it is deliberately slow, because every student has to leave with the right adult.
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We tell you where to go
The location is sent through ParentSquare at the time. It is not published in advance, and it may not be the school your student attends. Please wait for that message rather than driving to the campus.
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Bring photo identification
A driver's license, state ID or passport. Staff check it against your student's emergency contact list — so bring it even if the person checking knows you, and make sure that list is current in PowerSchool, because it is the list we will be reading from.
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Students stay supervised until someone comes
No student is left waiting alone. Noble staff stay with students until every one of them has been collected.
A note for families on the wait
In an emergency or exigent circumstance, there may be limitations that mean your child cannot be immediately checked out. If a campus is in a Secure, Lockdown, Evacuate or Shelter status, there may be an extended waiting period before reunification can begin.
Noble Campus Police shares your goal of returning your children safely to your arms as quickly as possible — but first we must resolve the emergency situation in front of us. We appreciate your patience and trust while we do everything we can to keep everyone safe.
Working to Prevent Violence Before It Happens
Almost everyone who moves toward violence tells someone first — a friend, a sibling, a group chat, a drawing, a post. That is the most useful single fact about school violence, and it is the reason a reported worry is worth more than any lock or camera.
District policy requires a behavioral threat assessment team at every Noble campus. It is a standing group rather than a meeting called after something happens, and it is deliberately made up of people who see a student differently from one another: a campus administrator, a mental health professional such as a school counselor, a school resource officer, and legal counsel when a situation calls for it.
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Identify
Someone — a student, a parent, a teacher, a bus driver — reports a behavior that concerns them. Nothing else in this process starts without that.
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Inquire
The team gathers facts from the people who actually know the student, rather than working from rumor or from a single account.
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Assess
The team looks at behavior and circumstances — what has changed, what pressures a student is under, whether there is a grievance, and what is keeping them steady.
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Manage
A plan is put in place. In the great majority of cases that plan is support: counseling, a named adult who checks in, help with whatever the underlying problem turns out to be.
What this is not. A threat assessment is not a criminal investigation and it is not profiling. There is no "type" of student who does this, so the assessment looks only at behavior and circumstances — never at who a student is or what group they belong to. The aim is to prevent violence, not to predict it, and a team that reaches a student early usually finds a problem it can help with.
A case also does not close the moment the worry passes. Federal best practice is to stay with a student for many months, with check-ins on a set schedule, and there are written criteria for returning to class after any removal. Getting a student back into normal school life — supported, and not isolated — is the point, because isolation is itself a risk.
The part families have most influence over
Threat assessment calls these protective factors. They are unglamorous, and they matter more than almost anything a school can install:
- At least one adult a student will actually talk to
- Realistic goals and something to look forward to
- Steady routines — sleep, meals, being expected somewhere
- A willingness to accept help when it is offered
- Adults who notice a change and say something about it
If something worries you, report it. You do not need to be sure, and you will not get a student in trouble by being wrong — a concern that turns out to be nothing is a good outcome, not a wasted call. Campus Police sets out every way to report, including anonymously, and Bullying Prevention covers reports about how a student is being treated.
How We Check Our Own Buildings
All five Noble campuses have had a professional risk and vulnerability assessment, completed in September 2023 — an outside look at the buildings, the grounds and how the district runs day to day, with recommendations attached.
- The assessments are not published — state law allows districts to keep them confidential, for the obvious reason that a document listing a school's weak points should not be downloadable.
- They can be read in person — families who want to understand what was examined can arrange to review a copy at the Superintendent's office or the campus police office. Copies are not released.
- They run on a five-year cycle — Noble's review is beginning now.
- The next review will use assessors from outside the district — several Noble officers are certified to carry these out, but a fresh set of eyes finds what daily familiarity stops you seeing.
Where the Protocol Began
The "I Love U Guys" Foundation was created in 2006 by John-Michael and Ellen Keyes after a school shooting took the life of their daughter, Emily. During the ordeal she texted her family three words that became the Foundation's enduring mission and ethos — "I Love U Guys."
Kindness · Community · Responsibility
The Foundation's materials are free, and the protocol is used by thousands of school districts, police departments and fire agencies. That shared language is the point: an officer responding to a Noble campus already knows what "Secure" means.
Plans and Documents
- The Standard Response Protocol The "I Love U Guys" Foundation's own explanation, with materials in several languages.
- School Resource Officers Noble's Campus Police Department, and how to report a safety concern.
- Bullying Prevention
- Transportation · Health Services · ParentSquare
The best preparation is boring
Read the parent handout once. Check your contacts in PowerSchool. Make sure ParentSquare can reach you. Those three things, done on an ordinary Tuesday, are worth more than anything you can do in the middle of an emergency.
Noble Campus Police · (405) 239-3711 · SRO@nobleps.com · Emergencies: 911