No, these things are definitely not taught enough. For example, ask grade schoolers what the signs of a stroke are, and what to do if you see someone exhibiting those signs. What percent can answer? Google says strokes kill 130,000 Americans every year. So, I'm thinking... what's the "Expected ROI" of 15 minutes per year on stroke education? Somewhere between 10,000x and infinitely more than the Expected ROI of this drill. But that's just one random example, I think you would be hard pressed to find literally any use of 15 minutes of classroom time with a lower ROI than this drill.

To me, it reflects so poorly on the judgement of the school administrators that it should make people seriously question what's going on. Every school does fire drills, probably because there's some regulation requiring it, and the mental framework for the drill is that there's an accidental fire in the building. This is an entirely different league. This is a "terrorist loose in the hallways" training exercise for 5 year olds. I'm mad enough it happened to someone else's kids.

Just to give some context, my daughter's JK teacher brought her horse to school for show-and-tell, she gives my daughter riding lessons (and yes there's a lot of trust involved letting someone help your 5 year old ride a horse), she had my daughter over for dinner one night when we had to take my son to the ER. It's a parent-participation school so regularly I spend time in the classroom. I could not imagine a more nurturing, peaceful, and loving environment. The juxtaposition of that with this terror drill is hard for me to reconcile.

I totally agree this is a combination of fear and horrible policy-making by administrators. I in no way hold the teachers responsible/accountable for this.