How School Shootings Are Changing the Design of American Classrooms

[Uzi2]

Lol. It's not "my rationale." It's experience trying to deal with this very issue for many years in more than one town.

But you feel free to join me. I welcome your help..

So, you're a continuous failure?

You're obviously doing something wrong if you can't convince people to commit to putting a simple "deadbolt" on the inside of a door.
I think you're just afraid of saying to those people: Look, if we eliminate X number of staff and their bennies, the cost is more than covered.

Tell me that you've suggested that and I'll call you a liar all day.

 

[Uzi2]

Have you seen all the news stories lately about the school districts crying about laying off bunches of staff they hired with COVID money, even though they weren’t supposed to do that, now that the COVID money has dried up?

They are screaming about lack of staff and class size now. No way they are budgeting spending on lock sets for all the necessary doors as @Picton said.

Wait till all the illegal ESL kids are plugged into those classes.

Yes, they (the school staff), the opportunistic thieves that they are, stole every penny they could that Covid funds had to offer and then some.....now it's time to come back to reality and the hard choices that reality requires.

It's never been about protecting kids with them, it's always about lining their wallets.

 

[Rob Boudrie]

Schools are already built of masonry. Most of the work is already done. You just need a secure door, without a window that has multiple swing bolt locations that can't be figured out from the outside. If doors are out-swing and equipped with safety hinges, then they can't be kicked in.

This is a mixed bag, as it pushes against windows in every door to make it more difficult to hide sexual abuse of students. I know of a Papist church that replaced all the classroom doors with ones having huge (about 30"x30") for exactly this reason.

 

[Picton]

This is a mixed bag, as it pushes against windows in every door to make it more difficult to hide sexual abuse of students. I know of a Papist church that replaced all the classroom doors with ones havinf huge (about 30"x30") for exactly this reason.

Fire codes require windows in the doors. Not sure how big they have to be.

We get yelled at every year for covering them up.

 

[Uzi2]

You should be showing up at Public Comment during your town's next school committee meeting and telling them all this. You're not wrong, but my prediction is you'll get nowhere. I never said it's a bad idea. I said your town is not going to want to spend money on it.

My hallway has eleven classroom doors. There are six hallways in my building, plus about twenty additional doors on each of three floors. That's 126 classroom doors, and that's just in one building. And minus offices, utility rooms, etc; all should be hardened similarly to be effective. I'm not counting connecting doors, and many of those have zero deadbolts right now.

I have no idea how much it costs to buy an institutional lockset and have it installed, but I'd assume it's at least $100 per door (I can see it being double or triple that, but I don't really have a clue). For easy math, we'll say $100. That's $12,600 minimum for my building, and a couple hundred thousand overall for the whole district. Minimum.

That's not chump change, especially considering what you'd hear from the school committee:

1. The chances of a school shooting are tiny; that's too much to spend.
2. Each door already has a deadbolt. Why add another?
3. We're laying off staff already this year. There's no excess money.

By all means, search for grants. But be aware that many school systems (and almost all towns) pay someone to search for grants; they're probably better at it than you are.

Maybe your comrades should be petitioning the feds for some of this money.

"Of the nearly $3 billion in humanitarian aid that the United States has given Afghanistan since the 2021 military withdraw, at least $11 million—and likely a lot more—has gone to the Taliban, according to a new federal audit that reveals the U.S. “has continued to be the largest international donor supporting the Afghan people since the former Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.” The terrorist group has taken the millions in humanitarian and development assistance intended to help the people of Afghanistan in the form of taxes, fees, import duties, permit charges, licenses, or public utility services. The Taliban has probably received a much bigger chunk of the humanitarian assistance because the parties involved in the cash giveaway, including federal agencies, the famously corrupt United Nations and handpicked nonprofits, do not bother keeping track.
**********************************************************************************************************************************


But far be it from the lefty teachers' unions and school officials to attempt to bite the hand that feeds them.

 

[dcmdon]

Thanks Picton and Rob. I had never considered the fact that windows might be required by code/law in classroom doors.

 

[MaverickNH]

Because it costs money. End of story.

I've been talking to administrators and school committees about this very topic for twenty years. As soon as something costs more, they shut down.

A lot of teachers I know say they keep door chocks stashed in their personal bag to wedge doors shut - against policy.

I put a deadbolt on my office door in any company I worked at - also against policy. A concrete block to smash a window if needed and knotted rope for egress as well, useful in any number of situations.

 

[Picton]

A lot of teachers I know say they keep door chocks stashed in their personal bag to wedge doors shut - against policy.

I put a deadbolt on my office door in any company I worked at - also against policy. A concrete block to smash a window if needed and knotted rope for egress as well, useful in any number of situations.

"Policy" changes all the time. We're into ALICE now, so egress is now GTG. So is throwing shit at the attacker; "shelter in place" has not been A Thing at my school since about 2015 or so.

The issue is that although TTPs for dealing with school shooters change frequently (and we get trained every year), the architecture doesn't. Because money for retrofits is always in short supply. Literally any construction project in a school seems to cost an amazing amount, and my town ain't got all that much surplus.

Blood from a stone. It's difficult to ask property owners to pony up more scratch when they only built a new school within the last ten years, especially when those ten years have featured epic inflation.

 

[MaverickNH]

"Policy" changes all the time. We're into ALICE now, so egress is now GTG. So is throwing shit at the attacker; "shelter in place" has not been A Thing at my school since about 2015 or so.

The issue is that although TTPs for dealing with school shooters change frequently (and we get trained every year), the architecture doesn't. Because money for retrofits is always in short supply. Literally any construction project in a school seems to cost an amazing amount, and my town ain't got all that much surplus.

Blood from a stone. It's difficult to ask property owners to pony up more scratch when they only built a new school within the last ten years, especially when those ten years have featured epic inflation.

Yeah, money would best be spent on almost anything else, given the rarity of school shootings. Let teachers/staff carry and make it known they do - problem ‘mostly’ solved. Some nutcases will still slip through, but the numbers will go down from rare to vanishingly small. Not that the gun-haters will let up…

 

[Qwikdraw45]

Do you think it's the students asking to turn their schools into prisons?

"Sheep pens". Baaaaa, baaaa. FIFY.

 

[oldguy68]

Are there fire extinguishers in every class room? Those will temporarily blind an attacker. Let teachers carry a large bear type canister of mace.
Have them do more drills and let the kids know it's ok to fight an attacker in school!

It's not getting better, it's only going to get worse. Until they take more serious and drastic measures in regards to school safety.

 

[Uzi2]

A lot of teachers I know say they keep door chocks stashed in their personal bag to wedge doors shut - against policy.

I put a deadbolt on my office door in any company I worked at - also against policy. A concrete block to smash a window if needed and knotted rope for egress as well, useful in any number of situations.

You can't wedge a door from the inside that opens outward into a corridor.

They may be able to wedge an "inter classroom door" from one side, but classroom to corridor is not happening.

 

[Picton]

Are there fire extinguishers in every class room?

No.

Let teachers carry a large bear type canister of mace.

Not gonna happen. Liability.

Teachers can carry guns in schools with a letter from the building principal. That's good enough.

Have them do more drills and let the kids know it's ok to fight an attacker in school!

In most schools these days, they do. ALICE involves fighting back, and kids drill it several times a year in any school that bothers to comply with DESE. That's not every school, though.

It's not getting better, it's only going to get worse. Until they take more serious and drastic measures in regards to school safety.

Again, the bugbear is money. Real money, not $10k from the local nonprofit. I've tried many times to squeeze money out of school committees for things more worthwhile than deadbolts, and undergone years of disappointment. Feel free to try.

You can't wedge a door that opens outward into a corridor.

They may be able to wedge an "inter classroom door" from one side, but classroom to corridor is not happening.

Many open inward, but wedging is just one method. There are others. Again, ALICE covers this and we have to take annual training on it. Most involve these,

and schools all have them. But barricades are faster and work better.