Written By: Brad Campbell | December 26, 2024
With active threats, civil unrest, and even severe weather on the rise across the United States, it’s more important than ever for schools to have lockdown plans in place to mitigate the risk of harm to their students and faculty. However, not all plans for a lockdown in school are equally effective — many do not do enough to protect the physical safety of students and staff.
School administrators and security professionals should familiarize themselves with school lockdown best practices and implement physical security measures that can protect lives during a worst-case scenario that could potentially put the lives of all school occupants at risk.
School lockdowns can occur for a variety of reasons, but they most commonly happen when there is an active threat (a violent attacker) on the premises or nearby. In this case, locking down the school can prevent the attacker from gaining entry where they can do more harm, providing additional time for law enforcement to arrive and neutralize the threat.
While an active threat is the most immediate and dangerous type of threat to the safety of students and staff, school lockdowns can also happen for any of the following reasons:
Although the students and staff within a school may not necessarily be in immediate danger because of such nearby threats, a school lockdown is still one of the best ways to ensure no harm comes to them while on school grounds. Starting a lockdown in school allows building occupants to securely shelter in place until the incident has been resolved.
Although it’s important to put school lockdown policies and measures in place that will protect against all possible threats to the safety and security of school occupants, all schools should be prepared for the worst-case scenario, which is an active threat.
If a school is prepared for this worst-case scenario, people inside will also be more safe and secure when they lock down in school to mitigate the risks of other potential threats.
Here are five steps schools should take to ensure their lockdowns are effective at physically protecting building occupants during an active threat scenario:
The number one way to protect the lives of a school’s occupants during an active threat scenario is to prevent intruders from getting inside in the first place, or from entering certain areas, such as classrooms, once they’re already inside the building.
In the majority of active threat incidents, the attackers gain access to their targeted facility through a vulnerable door or window. Even with all doors and windows closed and locked, it’s incredibly easy to break a traditional commercial glass window and reach in to open a door from the inside or simply climb right in.
To prevent an attacker from doing this, schools should install physical barriers to forced entry over vulnerable school windows and doors, both on the school’s exterior and interior.
To ensure an effective lockdown in a school, we highly recommend using containment-grade (forced entry-resistant) polycarbonate-based glazing shields or even ballistic-grade (bullet-resistant) security glazing.
This type of polycarbonate-based security glazing is thin and light enough that it can typically be retrofitted over existing doors and windows without modifying the existing framing, yet it has the virtually unbreakable strength of polycarbonate.
Even non-ballistic polycarbonate won’t noticeably diminish in strength when riddled with bullets and remains a barrier to entry by preventing an armed intruder from passing any part of their body through the glazing.
Access denial barriers aren’t the only solution districts and administrators should look at for improving school lockdown practices, but they’re the most effective way to keep bad guys out and minimize harm to students and faculty.
Another way to improve school lockdown safety is to strictly limit where people can access the school and monitor the flow of people in and out, ensuring entryway security.
Ideally, the school should have one main, secure entrance, and all secondary entrances should remain closed and locked at all times. If multiple access points are required, schools should keep the number to as few as possible and ensure they’re all monitored.
There are a few different ways to monitor the access points, including manning them with staff, security personnel, and/or school resource officers during the times when people come and go most, as well as keeping an eye on them all day long through a surveillance system.
For even better access control, schools might consider implementing access-controlled doors that can only be opened using a key card or key fob, which only students and staff have. Access key cards can even be integrated with student identification cards.
As we touched on earlier, schools don’t just need to create access denial barriers over exterior doors and windows — they must make sure classrooms are equally as secure as the rest of the building.
If classrooms have windows that look out onto the building’s hallways, as many do, these can be reinforced with forced-entry resistant security glazing as well.
Additionally, it’s important to ensure that all classroom doors close and lock properly. Schools may want to consider automatic locking systems, so there’s no possibility of a teacher or student forgetting to lock the door or not doing it correctly.
Lastly, classroom doors and windows should have some type of covering that can be lowered at will to prevent intruders from seeing who’s inside during a lockdown. This provides an added layer of security while teachers and students shelter in place in their classrooms during a lockdown in school.
During a school lockdown, all school staff needs to be able to communicate quickly and reliably.
Classrooms should have an intercom system connecting them to the main office and preferably a dedicated security office within. They should also have phone lines that can be used to make calls to law enforcement and other authorities if cell phone use is not possible.
Training all school staff on how to use the communication system and instructing them on emergency procedures for doing so is also essential.
Lastly, it’s also a good idea to inform local law enforcement about how a school’s communication system works, in the event they ever need to enter the building and communicate with people in classrooms via the system.
Conducting routine lockdown drills ensures that students and teachers know what to do in the event of an active threat or another security incident that forces a lockdown.
It’s recommended to conduct a lockdown drill during the first month of every school quarter, so at least four times a year. If procedures are updated between drills, schools should practice them additional times.
Recent tragedies at U.S. schools, such as the one at Apalachee High, have made it clear that schools absolutely must ensure their lockdown measures are strong enough to protect lives during the worst-case scenario.
By implementing strong physical security measures alongside other best practices for lockdowns in schools, districts and administrators can gain peace of mind in knowing that their schools can be locked down securely in the face of any potential threat.
At Riot Glass, LLC we are experts in school perimeter and classroom glazing security. Contact us today for a free consultation or to schedule a threat assessment.
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