Building Design: Classroom Security

Building Design: Classroom Security

Classroom door hardware

• Always locked or lockable from inside the classroom
• Consider barricade devices that are approved by the AHJ
• Minimize glazing to prevent visibility, physical access to the lockset from the corridor side, gaining physical access to the space via glazed openings.
• Consider protective glazing films or ballistic glazing at classroom entrances.
• Provide shades to conceal glazed openings
• Create shelter-in-place areas within the classroom
• Strategically located opaque walls that allow students to hide outside the line of sight
• Consider using ancillary classrooms spaces – toilet rooms, small group instruction rooms, storage rooms – as part of shelter in place strategy

Emergency Egress

• Consider multiple points of egress to allow for escape within the building or to the exterior.

Resource Links:
Architects prioritize design as a school security solution
https://www.aia.org/articles/201346-architects-prioritize-design-as-a-school-se

• Preparedness & Response

• Active shooter , Crisis Exercises and Response , School Crisis Prevention , Terrorism , Threat assessment , Trauma