Practical Tips for High School Campus Security: A Teacher’s Real-World Advice
It was third period AP Bio last October, and I was mid-rant about cell respiration when the intercom crackled to life with the lockdown alert. My classroom is right by the unmarked side door that leads to the athletic fields, so I jumped up to twist the lock—only to find the door already propped open with a cinder block, left there by the cross country team after their morning practice. Ten seconds later, a lanky sophomore I didn’t recognize came sprinting around the corner, breathless, and stopped dead when he saw 28 kids staring at him. He’d forgotten his lunch, he said, and cut through the door to save a two-minute walk to the main entrance. It took two whole minutes for me to confirm he was actually a student at the school, and by the time the drill ended, my quiz was forgotten, and I was ready to join the school’s new security committee just to fix that stupid door.
I’ve been on that committee for six months now, meeting once a month after school in the teacher’s lounge over leftover bake sale cookies and lukewarm coffee. We’re a mix of four teachers, three parent volunteers, one admin, and our school resource officer. We don’t have a six-figure budget for facial recognition or new perimeter fencing, so most of what we’ve done is small, cheap changes that fix the gaps we actually have, not the gaps people read about on the evening news.
The first problem we fixed was the constant propped door issue. Like that first incident, most of the time it wasn’t anyone being reckless. The cross country coach needed to move a dozen water jugs from the bus to the storage shed, the drama teacher propped the door open to move set pieces for the spring play, a kid held the door open for a group of friends after late arrival. Slapping a detention on whoever propped the door wasn’t going to stop it from happening again—someone would always need that 5 minutes of open door. Instead, we used PTA fundraiser money to buy 12 battery-powered door stops that beep nonstop if they’re held open for more than 10 seconds. They cost $10 each. We put one on every exterior side door that gets used regularly. If you do need to prop the door for a few minutes, you can stop by the front office to get a quick code to turn the beeper off, and you sign out the time you’re using it. Last semester, we only had three unapproved propped doors, down from 15 a week before that. We also started giving out a $5 coffee gift card to the first person who reports an unapproved propped door each week. It’s way more effective than writing people up, and it gets everyone looking out for the school, not just admin.
Next, we fixed our broken visitor check-in process. For years, we had a sign-in sheet at the front desk, and people would write their name, get a generic white sticker, and wander off. Last year, a parent came in to drop off a textbook, stopped to use the bathroom, and no one saw her for 20 minutes. People who didn’t belong could easily reuse an old sticker and walk right in. The change we made was super simple: we got a cheap label maker that prints the current date big and bold on every visitor tag. If you walk the halls and see someone with a tag that says 10/12 when it’s 11/15, you know right away something’s off. We also gave all staff a simple line to use if they see someone without a tag: “Hi, I haven’t seen you around today—can I walk you to the front office to get checked in?” It’s polite, not confrontational, so no one gets offended, and it’s become a normal habit, not something people only do if they’re suspicious. Our school resource officer, Joe, said he used to get calls once a month about unknown people wandering, now he gets one every two or three months.
A lot of parents ask why we don’t add more uniformed officers to patrol the halls. We only have one SRO, and a few years ago he spent most of his day roaming checking locks and breaking up minor fights. Now, we have him eat lunch in the main cafeteria twice a week, and he coaches the after-school weight lifting club for kids who don’t make the varsity teams. Most kids know his name now, and they’ll stop him to say hey, or mention if they heard something that feels off from a friend. Last semester, a freshman pulled him aside after weight club to say a kid in his class had been talking about bringing a knife to school to get back at someone who bullied him. Joe got admin involved, talked to the kid and his parents, got him the support he needed, and no one got hurt. That works way better than having an armed stranger roaming the halls that kids are scared to approach.
We also adjusted our drill routine. We used to do one full lockdown drill a semester, and they’d take 45 minutes, throw off the whole day, and no one took notes on what went wrong. Now we do 5-minute unannounced drills once a month, so everyone remembers what to do, and they barely cut into class time. After every drill, we send a quick Google Form to all teachers with two questions: what broke, and what do we need to fix? Last month, a chemistry teacher said her door lock wouldn’t latch, and we had the custodian fix it before the end of the day.
It’s not perfect. Last week, a mom ran in to drop off her daughter’s insulin pump, forgot to stop at the front desk, and walked straight to the nurse’s office, so we’re still working on how to make emergency drop-offs easy without leaving a gap. We haven’t solved everything, and we still have days where a door gets propped open and no one reports it for an hour. But what I’ve learned after six months on the committee is that good high school security isn’t about building a fortress. It’s about small daily habits that everyone buys into, and fixing the small gaps before they become big problems. We’re still tweaking things, and I suspect we will be for as long as the school stands.
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