On Monday, 28-year-old Audrey Hale shot their way through a double set of locked glass doors at a private Christian school in Nashville, TN before fatally shooting six people, including three children. For those who remember, this resembles the method of entry used by the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter. Yet, regardless of how advanced a building’s security hardware is, experts say people will do anything in their power to find a way in.
“The reality is that mass shooters are going to take enough time to figure out how to get in,” retired FBI agent Brad Garrett told ABC News. He noted that The Covenant School shooter had detailed maps and drawings of the school, allowing them to seamlessly navigate their way through the building.
Yet, the security footage released by police Monday night has sparked debate over whether schools should embrace fortified or metal doors to improve physical security at the risk of making their buildings feel like prisons.
Several recent school shootings involved unlocked doors, including Parkland, Uvalde and Michigan State University. While some believe locks and barriers might help to deter shooters attempting to enter the building, others say that it’s simply impractical.
“There are some types of locations—like college campuses, schools, entertainment venues, transportation facilities—where if you were to harden those targets, you would make it impossible for those locations to serve the purposes that are intended, former U.S. Department of Homeland Security Acting Undersecretary for Intelligence John Cohen told ABC News. “That’s what we’ve been wrestling with in the homeland security world since 9/11—is understanding which targets can be hardened and then how to the best degree possible enhance security around those softer targets can’t make an impenetrable ring of security around.”
And when it comes to intruders wielding high-powered assault rifles, “It’s just next to impossible to stop someone,” George Grant, a leader with the Nashville Presbytery connected to The Covenant School, told AP News.
Monday’s tragedy has forced district leaders around the country to shift their focus to school security. In Hamilton Country, TN, school board members announced plans to harden school building entrances and tighten security as a whole.
“I feel responsible for 45,000 students in Hamilton County,” Board member Jill Black told News Channel 9. “I take that responsibility very seriously. And I feel the weight of it.”
The district has also faced its fair share of scares, including two threats made at one of its middle schools in a week.
“This is bigger than what we can do at the school board,” said Black. “It takes all of us coming together and really deciding that we want something different.”
In one Missouri school district, The Covenant School shooting served as an eye-opener for its superintendent.
“I think it requires a lot more time and attention to make sure that we’re doing everything possible for our students, staff, parents and patrons, [keeping] everyone safe,” Bunceton R-IV School District Superintendent Kathryn Anderson told KOMU 8
With that said, the district plans to pour more resources into external security, such as adding more lights to parking lots, cameras that cover the entirety of a school’s property and external defibrillators in case of emergency.
“We’re just really trying to be cognizant of all the ways our students might be stressed or have anxiety,” said Anderson. “We want to make sure that we are addressing those and not leaving that to chance.”
Above all, proper training and preparation are the number one way to mitigate the risk involved with school threats. In a blog post, Kenneth Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services, outlines 10 steps superintendents, principals and safety officials should take to address gun threats at schools:
- Avoid “security theater,” a.k.a., heavily investing in physical security such as metal detectors and other hardening measures to portray a sense of safety.
- Focus on strengthening relationships between adults and students.
- Rapid response to neighborhood/group/gang conflicts.
- Increase communication and information sharing with the police, probation and community partners (within legal and policy parameters, of course).
- Regularly conduct security and preparedness assessments.
- Supervise students, especially in areas with fewer adults.
- Look into investing in anonymous reporting tools.
- Strengthen student supports like social, emotional and mental health resources.
- Engage students in addressing safety concerns and strategies to reduce the number of threats in schools.
- Participate in anti-violence and gun crime reduction and prevention initiatives within your community.
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