Most weeks from Monday through Friday, young students arrive with their backpacks at a school building to learn and develop as citizens. It is crucial that this environment is secure for their enhanced learning and school security.

Research scientists at the Center for Health and Public Service at New York University found that nearly 20% of urban students and over 10% of suburban students felt unsafe in their schools. It’s the responsibility of architects, parents, school boards and supervisors to provide that atmosphere for safety.

Safeguarding the thresholds with top-notch exterior steel doors is a great way to enhance school safety. Commercial grade security doors and frames help protect the barriers from all unauthorized intruders.

Creating Successful School Environments

For students to be successful in their academic pursuits, they require safe, secure and orderly atmospheres. Several measures can enhance security and at least slow down potential gunmen or other unwanted invaders.

• ENTRANCE POINTS: All the entrances should be monitored by security staff, teachers or administrators, especially at the beginning of the day when the students are flooding in for classes. During the day it’s essential the only accessible entrance is the front door. All other points of exterior entry should be closed and locked.

• EMERGENCY DRILLS: Using the National Incident Management System, school personnel should be trained on emergency preparedness. It’s a systematic, proactive approach to seamlessly manage incidents, threats and hazards. The teachers, staff, custodians and administrators should understand the importance of access control and monitoring those access points.

• SECURITY SYSTEMS: For example, radio frequency access control devices will help to rapidly contact emergency responders throughout campus grounds. Another great option is an intercom with a camera for school staff to monitor guest entrances. This will help administrators to visually verify a guest’s identity and purpose before allowing entrance.

By taking action for your school, you could prevent greater loss of life. Though no program will be 100% effective against determined, armed attackers, preventative measurements to protect thresholds are the first steps.

Preventing Forced Entry

Safeguarding thresholds with top-notch and up-to-date exterior doors and hardware is a key factor in maintaining school safety. You can optimize commercial grade doors to prevent forced entry by using features like heavier gauge metals, reinforced steel, and non-removable pin hinges.

While the benefit of heavier gauge (or thicker) metal is self-explanatory, reinforced steel and non-removable pin hinges require some explanation. Reinforced steel doors contain stiffeners inside the center of the door to prevent them from collapsing in on themselves when kicked, battered or rammed. Non-removable pin hinges are a special type of hinge designed specifically to prevent someone from removing the door's hardware from the frame. After all, a sturdy door loses effectiveness if someone can easily remove the hinges.

At a minimum, features like this are sure to increase the amount of time, effort and noise it takes to gain entry, allowing for a facility's staff to become alerted to something unusual going on and buying valuable minutes to respond to an emerging situation. At best, features like these will deter an unauthorized entry attempt altogether.

Choosing Secure Steel Exterior Doors

For starters, steel doors outlast their wood counterparts by at least 10 years. They’re much better insulated and resistant to vandalism. They’re the best choice for exterior door needs.

Aside from intruders, there are other types of school emergencies to be aware of. The commercial steel doors come with an option of up to 3-hours of fire rating. The fire-rated steel doors control the spread of smoke and fire.

The doors go through a very diligent testing system, not only to test the materials against fire, but also the closing devices used. Anyone installing these metal doors must understand the need for fire resistance and properly assemble and install the metal doors, to ensure that they meet the required criteria for local fire codes.

CDF Distributors has developed a series of durable and affordable commercial doors. All doors undergo rigorous testing, meeting industry standards set by UL, NFPA, ANSI, and ASTM.

For schedule convenience, CDF Distributors provides fast delivery. The FEDEX freight delivery works as a one streamlined network. FEDEX is regarded as the best international option for flexibility, reliability and cost-effectiveness. Local steel door deliveries extend to several other metro U.S. cities including Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, Seattle, and New York.

January 25, 2017
Wayne Foreman