Cardiac Emergency Response Plan Requirements for Schools: The 2026-27 Compliance Checklist

A cardiac emergency response plan is not a document. It is an inventory problem wearing a policy costume.

That distinction is the difference between a district that passes a compliance review and one that discovers, in the middle of an actual emergency, that the AED on the gymnasium wall has pads that expired fourteen months ago.

Minnesota schools are operating under their cardiac emergency response plan requirement for the 2026–27 school year, and the American Heart Association published statewide implementation guidance on August 24, 2026. Minnesota is not an outlier. Michigan schools have been under a comparable requirement since the 2025–26 school year. Pennsylvania enacted Greg Moyer's Law in May 2026. South Carolina passed its own requirement in 2026. The list grows every legislative session.

If you administer a school, manage a district's facilities, or run an athletic program, the practical question is no longer whether you need a plan. It is whether the plan you have can survive contact with the six facts underneath it.

What a cardiac emergency response plan actually is

A general emergency action plan tells staff what to do in a fire, a lockdown, or a severe weather event. A cardiac emergency response plan, usually abbreviated CERP, is narrower and more specific. It covers one scenario: someone collapses in sudden cardiac arrest, and the people nearby have roughly three to five minutes to do something about it.

Minnesota's requirement, codified at Minnesota Statutes section 121A.035 with a model plan published by the Minnesota Department of Education, calls for a written protocol covering recognition of a cardiac emergency, activation of emergency medical services, administration of CPR, deployment of an AED, defined response team roles, and regular practice drills.

Read that list again and notice what it assumes. It assumes you know where your AEDs are. It assumes they work. It assumes someone on site is trained. None of those assumptions are self-verifying, and a plan built on top of assumptions that turn out to be wrong is not a plan.

The state-by-state picture for the 2026–27 school year

Minnesota. Districts and charter schools must adopt a written protocol for preparing for and responding to cardiac emergencies. The Minnesota Department of Education publishes a model plan districts can adapt. Separately, Minnesota Statutes section 403.51 requires schools to register every public-access AED with the National Emergency AED Registry within 30 days of receiving the device.

Michigan. House Bills 5527 and 5528, signed in April 2024, required schools to develop cardiac emergency response plans covering school facilities and events, with training for athletic coaches. The requirement took effect for the 2025–26 school year, which means Michigan districts are now in their second year and should have drill records to show for it.

Pennsylvania. Greg Moyer's Law, Act 17 of 2026, was signed on May 13, 2026. Schools must make CPR instruction available to employees and volunteers at least biannually, with nurses, coaches, physical education teachers, athletic trainers and band directors required to hold and maintain certification. Each school building needs at least one trained, certified individual present during the school day, with additional trained personnel at athletic facilities. Schools with interscholastic athletics must maintain cardiac emergency response plans that include AED placement details, annual review, and an annual sudden cardiac arrest drill. Full compliance is due by May 13, 2029, but the reporting obligation arrives sooner: beginning June 30, 2027, schools must report AED inventory details to the Pennsylvania Department of Education annually.

South Carolina. A 2026 law requires cardiac emergency plans and AEDs in public schools.

The through-line across all four is worth naming. Every one of these laws eventually requires a district to produce a device inventory. Pennsylvania makes it explicit and annual. Minnesota makes it a registration deadline. Michigan and South Carolina embed it in the plan itself. A district that builds an accurate, maintained AED inventory now satisfies the current requirement and every plausible future one.

The six things every plan must be able to prove

1. Every AED you own, counted

Start on foot, not in a spreadsheet. Walk every building, including the ones people forget: the bus garage, the auxiliary gym, the field house, the administration annex, the concession stand at the football field. Districts routinely find units nobody had recorded, and just as often find a wall bracket where a unit used to be.

2. The exact location of each device

"Main hallway" is not a location. "North corridor, outside room 112, between the water fountain and the trophy case" is a location. In an emergency, the person sent for the AED is frequently not the person who wrote the plan, and they will be running.

3. Pad and battery expiration dates

This is where most programs quietly fail. Electrode pads and batteries are consumables with hard expiration dates, typically two to five years depending on the model. A unit with expired pads may still power on and report itself ready while being unable to deliver effective therapy. Record every expiration date for every unit, then set calendar reminders ninety days ahead of each one.

4. Named, currently certified responders

Not "the school nurse." Names, by building, by shift, and for athletics by season. Include the certification expiration date beside each name. Where a building has no name to list, you have identified a training request, not a gap in the paperwork.

5. Signage and unobstructed access

An AED locked in an office that is dark after 4 p.m. is not accessible to an evening basketball game. Verify that every unit has visible signage, that the cabinet is unlocked or that the alarm-only cabinet actually opens, and that access holds outside normal school hours when athletic events fill the building.

6. Registration filed with the state or registry

Minnesota's 30-day window under section 403.51 is the sharpest example, but registration matters everywhere for a practical reason beyond compliance. Registries such as the National Emergency AED Registry feed dispatcher systems, which means a 911 call taker can direct a caller to the nearest known device. An unregistered AED is invisible to the emergency system that might otherwise route someone to it.

Why AED registration deadlines catch districts out

The Minnesota rule is instructive because of when purchases happen. Districts commonly buy equipment over the summer, during the budget window, when buildings are empty and nobody is thinking about registry filings. A unit delivered in early July and mounted in mid-August is already past its 30-day window before students arrive.

The fix is procedural rather than technical. Add registration to the receiving checklist so it happens at delivery, not at some undefined later point, and assign it to a named role rather than to whoever opens the box.

The maintenance rhythm that keeps a plan current

A plan written in September and never touched again becomes inaccurate by roughly the following spring. A workable cadence looks like this.

Monthly: a visual check of every unit. Confirm the status indicator shows ready, the cabinet is intact and unobstructed, and the rescue kit is present. This takes a few minutes per building and should be logged.

Quarterly: review upcoming pad and battery expirations against the calendar and order replacements before they lapse rather than after.

Annually: refresh the responder roster, confirm certifications are current, run at least one drill, and update the written plan with anything that changed. Pennsylvania districts should treat the annual drill as mandatory rather than advisable.

What to do this month

If your district cannot produce its AED inventory in under an hour, the plan is not finished, and that is a fixable problem rather than a crisis. Walk the buildings. Write down what you find. Check the dates. Name the responders. Register anything unregistered.

Four of those five tasks cost nothing but an afternoon. The fifth tends to reveal a short list of expired pads and batteries, which is exactly the kind of problem worth discovering in September rather than during a game in November.

AED Professionals supplies AEDs, replacement pads and batteries, and AED program management support to school districts nationwide. If you would like help building a district-wide inventory or identifying which units are approaching expiration, our team can walk your list with you.

Sources

• American Heart Association Newsroom, "Minnesota schools implement cardiac emergency response plans for the 2026-27 school year," August 24, 2026
• Minnesota Department of Health, school emergency preparedness guidance, citing Minnesota Statutes sections 121A.035 and 403.51
• Minnesota Department of Education, Model Cardiac Emergency Response Plan for Schools
• American Heart Association Newsroom, "Michigan law requiring cardiac emergency response plans in schools is latest in nationwide trend," April 27, 2024
• KingSpry, "Greg Moyer's Law: AED and CPR Preparedness in PA Schools," Act 17 of 2026