I don't understand why schools don't lock the doors

This is so confusing to me. I went to grade school in the 70s, and there was one way in, where the front office was, and all the doors leading outside were locked. We could only open the doors from the inside, with push bar handles.

Fast forward a few decades, and my own kids are in school. All the doors are locked on the outside and can only be opened from the inside. There's one open door, and it's to the office, where you have to sign in and get a badge.

So, why is this not implemented in every school in the country? It's maddening to listen to all the kvetching about guns, but this is a super-easy-to-implement, cost effective solution.

Someone help me understand why counties aren't insisting that random armed strangers not be allowed to roam around school unchallenged.

 

The simplest answer is that fire codes dictate there are multiple egresses.

At the elementary school my children attended there were six entry doors. All of them were locked once classroom time started. Anyone wanting to enter had to use one door which was a direct link to the front office staff.

I am not really a conspiracy theorist but I find it questionable that all these lunatics have free access and opportunity to just walk into a classroom and unleash. However, I know several people this has happened to in my physical world.

 

Likely it IS implemented at every school in the country, but no system is perfect you know.

Other than hearsay evidence, I'm having trouble finding out what shooting was ACTUALLY done.

 

The doors locked on the outside are still egresses from the inside. Every school I've been in has the push bar handles.

 

Because support staff, custodial need access to the grounds. Teachers need access to outside too so they can get out. If you want to know why the doors are unlocked when they should be locked? Because it can slow down a job, or be open for a different concern. Mass shootings are rare. So why not be lax in security if it solves a legit function?

 

Like you, I've always seen the push bar handles. The school my children attended for elementary school had six front doors which were opened for the morning bell and again for the afternoon release. Any other time, we had to use the door on the far right and someone in the office had to buzz us in. They also did regular shooter drills.

I'm generally not a conspiracy theorist but it bothers me that elementary schools seem to be the place where the majority of these incidents are happening. Why? If someone snaps and plans a mass shooting, it seems like any group of people would be suitable to cause destruction. Why are these people killing little kids? Granted, it doesn't make sense to me that anybody would kill a bunch of people but it makes less sense to take it out on a bunch of children.

P.S. @Arkanis posted that our schools all have metal detectors but I have never seen that in any school I've attended or visited and he didn't answer me when I asked about his post.

 

I don’t think you read my post.

 

Back when I was growing up, schools did not even have fences around them.

The doors were kept unlocked during opening hours, even for many hours afterwards when there was mostly no one there except the janitor.

Now schools in many areas almost look like minimum security prisons.

I'm glad I'm not a child these days. I wouldn't want to go into a building or campus that was impossible to freely be able to walk out of, if for some reason I felt I needed to (even if it was against school rules or the law).

I do remember hearing stories in the news about some schools requiring their students to go through a metal detector, but those were sensationalistic news stories about far off crime-plagued inner city schools, and we considered it lucky we did not live there. Sort of how you read about unbelievable things happening in other far off parts of the world.

 

yeah, it’s disheartening. These shootings are becoming more and more frequent. One side says thoughts and prayers and the other side says ban all guns. Neither are helpful.

Being shot to death by a gun is now the leading cause of death in kids under 19. So sad.

Republicans, Please, though, do remind me about how precious the life of a zygote is, again.

 

I went to grade school in the 70s, and our push bar handled doors were always locked from the outside. Our recess playground was completely fenced in.

Now random people can just mosey in on a whim and cause a tragedy. I do not understand.

 

Were you close to a bigger city area or a higher crime area?

 

That statistic used to be confined to certain big city areas that were experiencing urban poverty problems.

Now it seems to have spread.

I suspect several factors are to blame. Both parents working and being gone away from the children, parents being under greater financial stress.
Higher population densities everywhere where most people live.
Changing demographics.

Even family values, changing moral values, lack of any special moral values or ethics.
Absent fathers.

If you treat children like prisoners, some of them are going to be more likely to lash out. So many of these supposed "solutions" could do more harm than good.

 

Quiet, 1 square mile town about 40 miles from downtown Chicago. Really, our cops dealt with the petty stuff. Murder and armed robberies weren’t really a thing.

When I was in jr high, there was a case of a HS student who beat up a teacher and got in some trouble. That was big news for a bit. That’s the type of high crime I was aware of back then.

 

I’m contemplating the thought that Tipper Gore may have been onto something. The FPS games are so realistic now, it is possible it’s desensitizing the kids to murder. Meh, murder isn’t so bad. It’s kind of fun.

Parents are definitely less aware of their kids these days. They now have social media accounts on sites we older people have never heard of. We, as a population, don’t really understand the warning signs for this, and mental health is so stigmatized, it’s hard to get help.

Way too many moving parts to say with authority on the root causes.

In the meantime, let’s just make it harder for whacked kids to go murder other kids.

 

Profiling people based on the mental health they sought is not going to help matters either.

 

A long time ago, in many areas, an armed adult could walk into a school and not trigger any panic. Or if you saw a teen walking with a rifle, the assumption that would be made is that he was probably in the shooting class and the teacher had sent him off to put the rifle back for some reason, or trade it for a different one because something was wrong with it.

Just saying things were different back then.

My dad told a story about plopping down a grenade on his teacher's desk and quickly pulling out the pin and acting like he was running away. The teacher did not even look up, assuming that it was a joke and that he expected some sort of reaction out of her.
These days, a student like that, even a small child, would probably be arrested or the teacher would jump up and scream for the class to evacuate.

Crime rates in many areas were extremely low. There were robberies and sometimes kidnappings, sure, but pointless killings were rare. Even mobsters and criminals usually had at least some code of ethics, and money was the motivator for any crime.

 

At first glance, you seem to be making a solid argument, but when one thinks it through, the flaw is that it assumes all our schools are being designed and built with this modern safety concern in mind. In truth, school buildings are a major outlay for schools, so most have to work with what they've got.

In answer to MJ's post, below, I will note that elementary school buildings tend to be less like fortresses, than high schools (though these have been targeted, as well). My own grade school building, for example, was a single story, with every class being along one or the other sides of the building. And this outward facing wall, in every class, had large, basically ground-level windows, running its entire length. I suppose one could attempt to fully bulletproof the entire outside of the building, but that would probably cost the school's annual budget. Besides, against a semi-automatic assault rifle, I would think it would take more than standard bulletproof glass, to withstand an extended, concentrated attack. It would be less expensive to just seal up all the sides with concrete blocks; though I don't know how everyone would feel about that-- and it still wouldn't be cheap.

 

My school has the push bar doors on the inside. What we've been asking for for awhile now is a better way to lock the doors from the inside that makes it impossible for anyone on the outside to get in during an active shooter episode. We've had ALICE training and - sadly - I've had to instruct my kids on what to do in several emergency situations.

We've kept our doors locked for years now; both to the hallways and outside. I think the only times they get kept unlocked is after school cuz' the custodians wanna make their job easier. Of course, they don't actually do their jobs at all anyways but that's what they tell us when we ask. Y'know, now that I think about it, the teachers generally keep their doors locked during school hours, it's our security and noon aides that leave them unlocked when they use their master keys to get into our rooms to pull a kid out. Half the time, I end up relocking the doors.

 

This is tough. I’m bipolar and have had some epic meltdowns throughout my life. Besides the screaming and post meltdown hangover, the most destructive I’ve ever been was that one time I threw a salad plate. I should qualify for a gun if I want one. Some bipolar peeps are quite violent though.

Mental health is a tough, tough topic.

Im not the person who can tell us how to get there, but these conversations need to happen.

 

Those push bar doors usually lock from the outside once closed. You can get out the door, but getting in requires a key.

This seems like a low cost way to move on. Columbine was a couple of decades ago, and the situation only gets worse. One of these school shootings happened a mile from where we lived.

 

It's long been common knowledge in society that many women are what has now been termed "bipolar".
This used to be regarded as relatively normal.

Now people will shout and disagree with you if you try to claim that these days.

 

My dad was bipolar, but we didn’t know that until I was diagnosed, and my siblings and I had the aha moment. He was much worse and violent. He shouldn’t have had a gun, but he did. Oh the fun we had when he held it to his head and threatened to kill himself. I was in third grade, or fourth. Mental health is a tricky tricky topic.

 

Was alcohol involved? Post traumatic stress from any war, childhood abuse, or anything like that?

 

Your OP? Yeah I did.

 

same