Written By: Brad Campbell | August 15, 2024
Schools looking for a quick and cost-effective way to reinforce window and door glass often turn to safety and security window film.
Security window film for schools is a great product that helps improve the safety of students and staff, but it’s important to understand its limitations before deciding if it’s the best choice for your school.
All types of window film, including security window film, are composed of many layers of a pliable poly-based coating that gets applied directly on top of existing window or door glass.
Depending on the exact composition of the window film, it has different properties that provide certain benefits.
Security window film is primarily built for one thing: fragment retention. This means that it is designed to hold broken shards of glass in place, preventing them from flying dangerously inwards and making it harder to penetrate the glass from the outside.
It’s important to note that security window film is not intended to stop glass from breaking, and therefore forced entry prevention is not its main purpose.
Although security window film does make it slightly harder to break through a window or a glass door, a determined intruder can still eventually gain entry by smashing a pane of glass out and opening a door from the inside or climbing in through a window.
The main benefits of using safety and security window film to protect a school’s doors and windows include:
Human safety is a big concern in schools, and security window film goes a long way towards reducing the risks of injury due to shattered glass, whether it be due to natural or human causes.
And, even though security window film does not prevent forced entry, protecting vulnerable entry points with security film is better than nothing.
In the event of an active threat scenario, for example, the window film can delay forced entry, giving those inside time to react by running, hiding, barricading themselves inside, and calling 911. Plus, the delay also buys more time for law enforcement to arrive and deal with the threat.
Lastly, as we mentioned earlier, installing security window film in schools is a very cost-effective solution. Installation is quick, easy, and inexpensive. This is why many schools on a tight budget often choose security window film over other types of security glazing.
Besides the added safety and security that security window film offers schools, there are some secondary benefits that it can provide, including:
Window film has built-in UV protection and can block out up to 99.9% of the sun’s harmful UV rays that cause furnishings to fade and can cause skin damage.
Window film can also greatly reduce the amount of glare from the sun, making it easier for teachers and students to work on computers and read near windows.
If you want to add privacy to classrooms, window film is available in numerous shades of tinted, colored, and reflective finishes.
When the light outside is brighter than inside, this prevents people from seeing what’s going on in classrooms, which adds another layer of security.
Finally, colored, tinted, and reflective window film can be used to give an older school a contemporary facelift, improving its curb appeal and modernizing its look without the need to undergo expensive and disruptive renovations.
If security is your top priority, we highly recommend considering ArmorPlast® AP25 as an alternative to security window film for schools.
ArmorPlast® AP25 is a retrofit solution, meaning it can be applied on top of your existing windows and doors by fitting its security framing into or onto the existing glass framing systems.
This 1/4” polycarbonate is containment-grade, meaning it’s not designed to withstand bullets, but it is virtually unbreakable. Even when riddled with bullets, AP25 doesn’t significantly diminish in strength and won’t allow any part of an attacker's body to pass through.
AP25 creates extremely formidable access denial barriers for active threat protection in schools. The protection it provides is far beyond anything you can achieve with security window film in schools, yet it’s still a very cost-effective solution, since there’s no glass replacement involved.
ArmorPlast® AP25 retrofit polycarbonate security glazing protects schools and the people inside them against all of the following threats:
Even the most prolonged, determined forced entry attempts, whether they be by a burglar or a violent attacker, will bounce right off of AP25.
Like security window film, this buys people inside time to react and gives the authorities time to respond. But, unlike window film, bad guys cannot get through the polycarbonate to gain entry to school facilities.
Combined with other components of a comprehensive school security system, such as surveillance cameras, alarms, access control systems, and modern door locks, polycarbonate security glazing is the best way to prevent harm to students and staff.
At Riot Glass, we can provide you with the best security glazing products available on the market. We can also help you determine what the best solution is through a professional threat assessment.
Contact Riot Glass today for a free consultation.
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