How difficult / easy is it for someone to enter your child’s school?

[Anonymous]

Our child attends a DC private high school. Anyone can open almost any door and walk in. The students come and go from different buildings etc. I’m not sure how other schools have it? I told an older relative this and she was shocked and said that every one she knows says their kids school has locked doors and only one entrance and that my child’s school was an exception.

[Anonymous]

My kid’s school is set up so that the only door that is unlocked is the front one, at which point you enter the office and you have to sign in to get into the rest of the school. (The students and staff have ID cards so they don’t have to go thru the office.)

This sounds good in theory but someone could easily just shoot the secretary and continue on their merry way OR they could sneak in when there’s just a stream of students entering so the door remains open for 5-10 minutes as students enter. OR if it was an inside job they a student or staff could open one of the other doors from the inside and a shooter could easily get in.

[Anonymous]

Article -

Most elementary schools have only one entrance and exit. (To prevent kiddie wandering away accidents and child predators from snatching them I suspect.)

Most middle schools have 2-3 open entrances/exits but monitored. (They're considered old enough to know not to wander off.)

Most high schools have a bajillion entrances and exits with close-feed cameras but not continuous monitoring. (Because most HS students have to wander between buildings and even campuses to get to and from class. One entrance/exit just isn't feasible).


http://abcnews.go.com/US/mother-walks-texas-high-school-stopped-calls-security/story?id=53304996

[Anonymous]

The elementary school at which I teach is not easy to enter. I can virtually guarantee you that you would not find an unlocked exterior door during the school day. Some can be unlocked by fobs teachers carry. Visitors are "buzzed" through the main doors and there is a camera that feeds to phones on all desks in the office. The office looks out onto the entry foyer.

The HS has been pretty easy to enter, but perhaps it has changed recently. I went there a few weeks ago for a training and people parked in the back of the school near where we thought the training was. We just went and tried doors until we found one unlocked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The elementary school at which I teach is not easy to enter. I can virtually guarantee you that you would not find an unlocked exterior door during the school day. Some can be unlocked by fobs teachers carry. Visitors are "buzzed" through the main doors and there is a camera that feeds to phones on all desks in the office. The office looks out onto the entry foyer.

The HS has been pretty easy to enter, but perhaps it has changed recently. I went there a few weeks ago for a training and people parked in the back of the school near where we thought the training was. We just went and tried doors until we found one unlocked.

Re: the elementary school. So visitors have to be buzzed in...then what? I'm confident that anyone can push the buzzer at my son's school and be allowed in.

[Anonymous]

Super hard. We are in a walled compound and there are armed security guards at each gate. To get past the guards, you have to show your school ID card or official visitor badge, and to get the visitor badge, someone from admin needs to come outside of the gate to give it to you.

(international school in another country)

[Anonymous]

What I worry about are the glass doors and large windows. Easy to break.

[Anonymous]

I feel like schools should have panic buttons, like banks do.

If it’s pressed, law enforcement team comes rolling in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Super hard. We are in a walled compound and there are armed security guards at each gate. To get past the guards, you have to show your school ID card or official visitor badge, and to get the visitor badge, someone from admin needs to come outside of the gate to give it to you.

(international school in another country)

I used to work at an international school in the Middle East and the entire school was surrounded by walls. There were 2-3 gates with multiple armed gunmen at each one. If a car pulled in, it stopped in front of the closed gate to be searched. They used to mirror to look under the car for bombs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel like schools should have panic buttons, like banks do.

If it’s pressed, law enforcement team comes rolling in.

And then some overeager SWAT member shoots a 8-year-old and we have a huge uproar. Yeah, not sure law enforcement wants that.

[Anonymous]

Fenced/walled international school with guards. I don't always have to show my ID because they recognize me. While that is convenient, who is to say I am still a parent there.

[Anonymous]

I could walk into ANY school, as could anyone else. There are constantly people walking out side doors, which must be left unlocked from the inside for fire code. Almost no one questions when someone goes in as they come out. This is how the Parkland shooter entered the school building. Security at the front door is pretty much useless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel like schools should have panic buttons, like banks do.

If it’s pressed, law enforcement team comes rolling in.

+1
Good idea.

[Anonymous]

Thing is, the "one entrance" and "one exit" schools are giving you a false sense of security. Are those windows bullet proof? Because it only takes a second to shoot out a window, climb in, and you know the rest...

The answer is, it is always very, very easy for someone to enter your child's school if the person is ill-willed. But if I were to walk up to your kid's school, I'd have to announce myself on an intercom before they unlock the door, then I'm met by security and escorted to the front office.

[Anonymous]

Very easy at my daughter's middle school, because when? my husband wrote the grant, he wrote it for enough money for security systems for the entire county in addition to metal detectors. The school board refused to purchase the metal detectors no matter how much he argued for them (he was law enforcement, now retired). They said it made the schools "look bad". I once decided to see how easy it was, so I wore all black, a trench coat, a ball cap pulled low over my eyes, and walked up to the door. The janitor (who had never seen me before), said hi and let me in, since he had the door propped open with a trash can. I walked into the office and no one was watching the cameras. I went off on the receptionist, and told her my husband would be hearing about it, because the safety of the school was his business. He had to have a meeting with the SROs and the principal. If I could walk in dressed like that, anyone could.