Letter: Classrooms should have bulletproof security doors.
The moment it is apparent a shooter is in or near a school, why not make classrooms “safe rooms”? Instead of students and school personnel becoming possible targets in hallways and schoolyards, direct everyone to get inside the nearest classroom.
Every classroom should have a bulletproof security door with bulletproof glass from the hallway that can only be operated from inside the classroom or from a central monitoring station. A second bullet-proof security door with the same controls should be installed that goes outside to provide a safe and controlled escape if needed.
Once a shooter’s location is established, solid hall barriers could be dropped from the ceiling or activated from the corridor walls to isolate the shooter and provide additional safety for the students. These should be operated similar to the fire-protection systems used by modern cruise ships.
School boards should require that all new schools have concrete-block hallway walls that have the hollow cores filled with concrete and reinforcing rods to make the walls near impregnable. This construction method should be made standard criteria by school authorities. Bulletproof security doors and hall barriers should also be installed in all existing schools.
Requiring new construction design, providing classrooms that become “safe rooms” and installing corridor barriers would be big steps forward to protect our students and teachers from deranged killers. Lynn Bradeen Orlando