Experts Call for Interior-Locking Classroom Doors
Thousands of schools across the country are lacking a basic safety feature that experts have recommended for decades: classroom doors that lock from the inside.
Despite billions of dollars that have been poured into schools nationally, 1 in 4 U.S. public schools lack classroom doors that can be locked from the inside, according to a survey conducted two years ago by the National Center on Education Statistics, a federal research office.
Outdated locks are especially common in older school buildings that haven’t been renovated, industry representatives said.
Doors that can be quickly and easily locked can mean the difference between life and death when a shooter is on school grounds. That’s why post-shooting safety commissions, teachers, fire safety groups and both gun rights and gun control groups have all advocated for interior-locking doors since the Columbine shooting in 1999, in which two students killed 12 classmates and one teacher.
Such locks allow teachers to secure their classrooms with a key from either side of the door. When the door is locked, no one can enter from outside the classroom, but the door can always be opened from the inside by just turning the knob. That allows students and teachers to always exit the classroom freely, as fire codes require.
The upgrade doesn’t come cheap — installing an updated lock can cost between $200 and $900 per door, according to one industry estimate, though some older locks can be modified for less. But there is a broad consensus among experts and school safety advocates that this is a simple and effective measure that some school districts have left by the wayside even as they’ve spent millions on new security.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said that interior locks are critical to deterring shooters who make it into a school. “That’s less invasive than virtually any other kind of security measure,” Weingarten said.Source: NBC News
