Safety in schools has long been a top consideration of school administrators, but since the events of Columbine, Parkland and Uvalde, the task of keeping schools safe continues to be an ongoing concern, leaving students, teachers and parents at a loss on how to stay safe.
In fact, a Gallup poll in 2022 found that 44% of K-12 parents fear for their child’s physical safety while at school. This means nearly half of parents don’t believe that their children’s schools are secure enough to protect them. The issue of safety in schools is certainly a complex one, but there are proven measures that can be taken that are readily available to school administrators.
The first question we must ask is, “What is it, physically, about our schools that leaves us vulnerable?” This question can introduce a variety of responses. To combat vulnerabilities, people may look to our governing bodies to implement policy change while others may draw attention to the role of personal responsibility of school employees in maintaining security, many of which overlook the physical state of community buildings—more specifically their doors and entrances—and jump straight to costly security add-ons.
In 2020, the Department of Homeland Security ran an active shooter simulation, in which classroom doors that lock when closed had a “significant impact” on deterring the threat of the shooter. To date, no active shooter has ever breached a classroom door that was securely latched and locked.
Despite this simple safety measure, one in four U.S. public schools still lack classroom doors that lock from the inside, highlighting the need to increase public awareness of effective security enhancements and door safety practices. While ensuring all schools have secure door openings seems like a straightforward solution, there is currently no national standard for secure openings in America leaving students, faculty and staff at risk.
To address the lack of necessary standards for secure openings, the Door and Hardware Institute in collaboration with the Door Security and Safety Foundation recently released new guidelines, “Are Your Door Openings Secure?” to equip not only school teachers and administrators but also building managers and property owners with the knowledge and resources to confidently secure their buildings.
These guidelines are meant to serve as a resource on the best practices for securing community spaces; within the guidelines, there are recommended guidelines, outlining three different levels to securing openings, that teachers and administrators may use to assess their current security capabilities at the opening and inform them on proper operational procedures.
Our goal is to make schools not only aware of the importance of door security, but also to embolden them to first, educate themselves, and second, facilitate steps toward improving their spaces with properly secure openings. We know the impact implementing these guidelines can have, and we are committed to supporting school administrators as they create safe learning environments, one door opening at a time.
If you would like to learn more about our guidelines, please visit DoorSecuritySafety.org.
