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
If You Get the Alert
If Your Child Calls
Reunification
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.
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 have to be moved off campus, families are reunited with them through a controlled process 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 reunification location is sent through ParentSquare at the time. It is not published in advance, and it may not be the school your student attends.
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Bring photo identification
A driver's license, state ID or passport. Staff will check it against your student's emergency contact list. Bring it even if the person checking knows you.
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You will be met and given a card
Staff greet families on arrival, explain the process and hand out reunification cards to fill in. You will be pointed to a check-in line based on the first letter of your student's last name, so lines move steadily. If you have children in more than one grade, expect a separate card for each.
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Your student is walked out to you
Students are brought from a separate area rather than released into a crowd, and they are asked whether they are comfortable leaving with the adult who has come for them.
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Students stay supervised until someone comes
No student is left waiting alone. Noble staff stay with students at the reunification site until every one of them has been collected.
The card you will be handed on arrival. Worth a look now rather than then.
Watch: a grownup's guide to reunification
What to expect if you are ever asked to come and collect your student from a reunification site.
Looking at the card now, when nothing is happening, means one less unfamiliar thing on a day when everything is unfamiliar.
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.
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.
On why reunification is planned in advance rather than improvised, the Foundation puts it plainly: "Recovery starts when the crisis begins. Reunification is the first step."
Plans and Documents
- The Standard Response Protocol The "I Love U Guys" Foundation's own explanation, with materials in several languages.
- The Standard Reunification Method Includes "A Grownup's Guide to Reunification", a short video on what to expect.
- 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