ABOUT THE NEED FOR LOCKS ON CLASSROOM DOORS
WHICH CAN BE LOCKED FROM THE INSIDE WITHOUT EXPOSURE


The Sandy Hook Advisory Commission recommended that "all classrooms in K-12 schools should be equipped with locked doors that can be locked from the inside."

[boldface and underlining added throughout for emphasis]

Likewise, the National Association of State Fire Marshals - which has frequently expressed concerns about children or even teachers not being able to escape in time in the event of a school fire, or of first responders not being able to reach people trapped inside - nevertheless strongly recommends that "to help protect teachers and students in the classroom, the classroom door should be lockable from inside the classroom without requiring the door to be opened."

The GUARDIAN has reported that "once a shooter is in a building, most security experts agree getting into a locked room is one of the most effective deterrents against getting injured or shot."   Indeed, in no school shooting incident has a locked classroom door been breached, since the gunman doesn't want to waste time trying to force it open, and shooting a lock off is easier said than done.

Similarly USA TODAY advised that "security experts say locks go a long way toward keeping out danger.  You have to think in terms of we've got to have the least amount of tragedy and the most amount of saving, and that may be this key situation, . . .  Interior locks may have saved lives during a 2005 school shooting on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota."

And the magazine CAMPUS SAFETY urged its readers that "it is vital for staff to be able to successfully secure classrooms from the inside to protect students from potential threats."
 
INSIDE HIGHER ED - Locking Out Danger *** Should college classroom doors have ability to lock from the inside?: "In general, doors that lock from the inside have been in place on college campuses for several years, said Jesus M. Villahermosa Jr., president of Crisis Reality Training, which advises organizations on handling emergencies. He said that while it is impossible to eliminate risk entirely, in his experience "locks absolutely work. People are able to secure themselves in rooms and shooters haven't been able to get to them."

ABC NEWS - Classroom Doors That Don't Lock Add to UCLA Shooting Scare : "Some students at UCLA were forced to create makeshift barricades because they were unable to lock classroom doors Wednesday when the school went into lockdown during an active-shooter situation.  Beyond that, many of the doors opened outwardly, making it even more difficult to secure them against what was feared to be an active shooter."

UCLA shooting renews concerns about classrooms with no locks :  "Yet once an active shooter is in a building, most security experts agree getting into a locked room is one of the most effective deterrents against getting injured or shot. "How many deaths would it have taken for us to address this issue more seriously?" said Jesus Villahermosa, president of Crisis Reality Training, noting that an assailant, knowing police are on the way, usually won't bother trying to access a locked room."
     "The National Fire Protection Association's life safety code adopted in 38 states does NOT prohibit putting locks on doors, division manager Robert Solomon said. But there are certain types of locks schools must install. Solomon said the types of locks found in many HOTEL ROOMS are an effective example. The door can be bolted from the inside but it opens in one motion when the handle is turned."

CAMPUS SAFETY - Best Practices for Securing Classroom Doors from the Inside : "Whether facing an active shooter emergency or another type of lockdown situation in school, it is vital for staff to be able to successfully secure classrooms from the inside to protect students from potential threats. At Sandy Hook Elementary School, the classroom doors could only be locked from the outside, {{ the system for many classrooms at GWU}} forcing teachers to walk out into the hallway and potentially into the line of fire in order to secure their classroom.

Students, Faculty Buy Interior Classrooms Locks
     All of the university’s 123 general purpose classrooms lock from the outside.
     In a video posted by the Oakland University Police Department on tips to survive an active shooter situation, a professor can be seen at 3:44 opening a door partly to duck outside and lock it.
     It portrays an active shooter aiming and opening fire on students in the hallway . . . “Everyone who sees that video, their blood runs cold. It’s more than stage fright. If you think someone is shooting at you, it’s going to become so much more difficult to open and lock that door as opposed to a simple flip of a lever,” Discenna said.
    The faculty union donated $5,000 through the All University Drive Fund, which has been committed to buy and install interior door locks. That $5,000 is enough to pay for one of the university’s largest classroom facilities, South Foundation Hall, which has 37 general purpose classrooms.   The Oakland University Student Congress has also pitched in $5,000 for the effort.
     Fox stated that while most students do feel safe on campus, he also feels that most students aren’t prepared for an active shooter or active assailant situation.
   “This is a matter of life or death and should be prioritized. It’s a relatively easy fix to a problem that could be catastrophic. Between the locks and the new student union [which cost $46 million to renovate], I feel like students would have preferred safety,” Fox said.

7 Lessons Learned from the Sandy Hook School Shooting
2. Locking interior doors worked.
     As in the vast majority of K-12 school shootings in the United States, not a single student or staff member was killed behind a locked interior door. Although many people have stated that staff and students should have evacuated, the report indicates that where lockdown was accomplished fast enough, no victims were killed.
     Despite the fact that the locked front entry door was breached, the report indicates that no interior doors were breached by force. Keeping in mind that most of the staff and students in the school survived, this affords additional evidence that lockdown is still one of our most effective tools to prevent death in mass casualty school shootings.

Use Common Sense When Purchasing Campus Security Technology
     I also have issues with schools installing ballistic classroom doors, which can cost around $4,000 each.
     In all my years running Campus Safety magazine and CampusSafetyMagazine.com, I have yet to hear of a school, university or hospital shooter successfully breaching a locked interior door. Even those wimpy push-button locks haven’t been breached (yet). 
    That’s because active shooters almost always want high body counts. When they encounter a locked door, they simply move on to an entrance that isn’t locked or is a softer target.
     So which security technologies and equipment should your campus buy? I generally prefer solutions that have multiple applications and can prevent or mitigate multiple risks.
     For example, locks not only enable  teachers to lockdown their classrooms, locks also can also prevent theft and vandalism.
    Here is a list of just some the security equipment and technologies I believe are wise investments:
     Classroom door locks: These should comply with all fire and ADA codes, and should be lockable from the inside of the room so a teacher, administrator or other staff member can quickly lockdown and shelter in place.


The CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, in an article entitled The New Norm for Back to School: Active-Shooter-Response Training, reminds college faculty that:
"So frequent are campus shootings that many of them become just a blip in the national consciousness. In the past five years alone, there have been fatal shootings at:
Central Michigan Delta State,
Florida State,
Northern Arizona,
Savannah State,
Seattle Pacific,
Tennessee State,
Texas Southern,
Winston-Salem State
Universities of California at Los Angeles
North Carolina at Charlotte;
North Lake,
Sacramento City,
Umpqua Community,
Wayne Community Colleges."

The National Association of State Fire Marshals echoes the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission’s standpoint on the importance of being able to lock doors from inside the classroom.

NASFM recommends classroom door hardware meet the following criteria:

  1. Hardware must be lockable from inside the classroom without opening the door to minimize exposure by inserting a key in the cylinder of the inside lever
  2. Give emergency responders access from the outside of the classroom, either by using a key or some other credential
  3. Egress without a key, tool, special knowledge or effort and only one operation to unlatch the door
  4. Operable hardware should be mounted between 34 inches and 48 inches above the floor
  5. No tight grasping or twisting of the wrist to operate
  6. If a classroom door is fire rated, the door must be self-closing and self-latching and may not be modified in a way that invalidates the fire rating

Mass shootings boost interest in active shooter insurance
Active shooter insurance is relatively new, and it’s marketed toward schools, businesses and municipalities.
The threat of gun violence is real enough that business owners, schools and houses of worship can buy insurance against it.
As violence grows in schools, malls, universities and other venues, insurers found that many of the standard liability policies in existence were written prior to the rise in mass shootings.
Some [existing] liability policies even exclude gun-related violence entirely.
Universities can be hard to secure, and the high volume of people present daily increase the chance of an armed individual entering a facility unchallenged.
Since workers' compensation may not cover employees' post-traumatic stress disorder related to a violent event at work, active assailant policies can pay for that expense. [emphasis added]

SEE ALSO:   The evolving law of tort liability has made it clear that a university has a duty to take reasonable care, including taking reasonable steps, to protect people on its property, and also people with whom it has a relationship, from foreseeable risks.  This goes back at least to the mid 1970's when a jury ruled in favor of famous singer Connie Francis who was raped in her hotel room by a criminal who broke into her room because it could not be locked since the establishment failed to take reasonable (and very inexpensive) care to protect her from this arguably foreseeable intervening cause.
    The many school shootings, and those planned shooting which were narrowly averted, establish that this risk is now clearly all too foreseeable, as does the large number of schools paying more for shooter insurance coverage, parents paying for bulletproof backpacks, and the interest of many colleges and universities in considering restricting access to its buildings. 
    Although the risk or probability - the "P" in Hand's famous Calculus of Risk for determining negligence - may be small, the magnitude or seriousness of the risk (death or serious bodily injury to many people), "L," is very large. 
   When these two factors are balanced against the cost of prevention - a $20 lock and 15 minutes of installation; probably less than $1000 for all the classrooms in most buildings - the chances of a university being sued for negligence (and perhaps having to settle) can and should be a matter of some concern. 
    After all, colleges have been sued for failure to prevent a student's suicide, to prevent one student with known dangerous propensities from injuring another, for injuries suffered at the hands of fellow fraternity members, and for failure to have in place reasonable security measures designed to protect against violence by a third party (even though it is what the law of negligence classifies as an intervening cause).
    Indeed, the very fact that so many other colleges have installed inside-lockable latches on classroom doors, and so many experts have recommended it, would strengthen any legal action which might be brought against a university.