Tomorrow, I am bringing the issue of locking our classroom doors during the day, every day, to our Faculty Advisory Committee (which I am on).
Last year, we asked to do this. Many of the schools in our district have entrances from outside their building directly into the classroom (no hallways,…
My mom said her school will probably go back to locking their doors on all the classrooms, but what would be the point? All the classrooms have windows, both to the outside and in the doors to the hallway. The locks may slow someone down by seconds, but it would be only seconds. Same with all the locks they have coming into the building. All someone has to do is take out the windows, and they’re in anyhow.
She said this is something she’s worried about a long time, considering some of the students and parents she’s dealt with and a lot of the former students who are still in the community. (It’s a small town. Everyone knows pretty much everyone.)
Mom said the only thing you could do would be to surround schools by high fences topped with barbed wire, an armed guard post out front, no windows, and steel doors. And who wants to send their kids to a prison to learn?
It’s just sad that this is even something educators have to think about.
Perhaps they could just put the windows higher in a classroom. even that minute or so of struggling to get through the door is enough to hopefully get some of the kids to safety or hide them. Not all classrooms have windows an in that case locking the doors is useful, any minor deterrent is a struggle or hassle I don’t think many people are going to deal with to get into a classroom. Unless they were targeting a specific classroom I don’t think it’s likely they would bother with the struggle.
I guess you could do high windows, but that would involve tearing down all the existing buildings (including one brand new one) and building new ones. And it would still be reminiscent of prison.
Honestly, though, I think it’s silly to have this discussion. Let’s talk about meaningful gun control, because you know when teachers won’t have to worry about someone shooting up a room full of 6-year-olds? When people can’t get their hands on the guns that make it possible to shoot up a room full of 6-year-olds.