By Victor Skinner
EAGnews.org

ST. LOUIS, Mo. – School officials searching for ways to protect students in the wake of the recent school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut are realizing there is one simple step that could save lives:

Installing locks on classroom doors.

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It may sound like common sense, but classroom door locks – specifically ones that a teacher can lock from the inside without stepping into the hallway – may be less common than most people think.

Missouri’s Ferguson-Florissant School District installed updated “intruder locks” in 2007, but many other St. Louis area schools are only now looking at the option after several students and teachers escaped harm by hiding in locked classrooms during the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, Stltoday.com reports.

“Locks were the first step the Edwardsville School District took to strengthen its safety and security measures after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. The district installed new classroom door locks during the winter break,” the news site reports.

“Lindbergh (schools) … plans to do so in the next several weeks, and Rockwood (schools) will ask voters for money for the project as part of its bond issue on the April ballot.”

Different types of locks, which range from systems that can lock all classrooms at once to more simple push button locks, can be fairly expensive. The Lindbergh district is expecting to spend $200,000 to install intruder locks at its two schools that don’t already have them.

“It gets expensive,” Ann Jarrett, spokeswoman for the Missouri National Education Association, told Stltoday.com. “But when they have to step out into the hallway, it impairs their ability to protect their students.”

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Put another way, the expense can save lives. We think the locks are well worth the money.

Police officials in South Dakota agree, and they’re looking at upgrading locks and installing other precautions to make it harder for people to enter schools, according to an editorial by the Rapid City Journal.

The Rapid City School District wants to spend $250,000 to protect students because visitors currently walk a long distance into buildings before they reach the check-in desk. Other entrances are also left unsecure, according to the newspaper.

“Mike Kenton, director of support services, said he will make a proposal to spend $100,00 to install keyless entry systems and surveillance cameras in all district schools that don’t already have them and $150,000 for other ‘controlled-access systems’ that would allow school staff to control who enters a building,” the editorial said.

“Controlling access may not be a foolproof means of stopping an armed invasion of a school, but it could be a deterrent and adds more security to an already safe environment.”

Having armed guards, or a few qualified teachers with access to guns, is not a bad idea. But making sure schools are more difficult to enter, and all classroom doors can be locked from the inside, seems like a logical first step that every school in the nation should pursue.