At new California schools, nothing is to stand in the way of a teacher locking a classroom during a criminal’s violent run. The entrances stand ready for a closure that keeps the students safe.
Inside locks give the teachers and K-12 students an opportunity to get together behind a safe door.
Past Regrets
Safeguards did not always protect California students and staff against illegal and dangerous entries by criminals with violent tension, or rage. Outdoor locks were used to stop criminals, but teachers kept students safe by going outside the classroom to lock the door from the outside. Time to stay safe was lost and the teacher was exposed to plain danger during a period the state legislators found that violent crimes at schools were rising at an alarming rate. The practice of protecting schools using only outdoor locks was put to a full stop on July 1, 2011 by Assemblyman Tony Mendoza (District 56) and Senator Gloria Romero (District 24) by making it a law that new schools have to use locks inside the doors at entrances and at classrooms and offices that have 5 or more people inside. Doubts about safety were cleared up.
School Lock Down
Ever day, hysteria is not a threat. At least not a threat that can not be fixed by a security response. Lock downs have long been used at California schools to keep criminals that target people at a school in check. Students and staff are kept inside a room and all the doors locked. But, teachers that had to go outside the door to lock it took on the risk and were exposed to harm. The lock downs are safer at the new schools.
Classroom Security Locks
The doors can not come unstuck. And, no one get left in danger out in the hall. Even for a moment. Mendoza’s and Romero’s law changed the building standard. Everyone can stay inside the room and the teacher lock it from the inside.
The classroom security locks, as they are commonly called, have to get put in the building built using funds the Office of Public School Construction gives out for the School Facilities Program. The Division of the State Architect reviews the designs.
All the new classrooms get the locks built in. Principals and staff also have to have the inside locks on the office doors at the administrative building. Storage closets electrical rooms, and other rooms that stay locked on the outside at all times, do not have to have the inside locks.
School builders have the responsibility to put the locks on any new building, even those built on an old campus. But, additions to current schools that do not add a separate building and remodeling or upgrades done for modernization do no need to add the locks to inside any doors.
A No Trouble Lock
Wasted time and effort are kept in the background, where no criminal can see. Teachers at the new schools might get tied up at the classroom helping students, but they can count on the inside locks to keep them safe every day. No troubles. No worries.
Sources:
California Division of the State Architect, Bulletin 11-05 (June 21, 2011).
Classroom Security Locks Act (2010).