Despite the constant drumbeat of news about the alarming frequency of school shootings around the country, many communities still view their schools as safe havens, and quite a few schools double as shelters from natural disasters.
In Texas, E-class buildings must include a tornado shelter, according to Jon Moreau, Balfour Beatty Construction Services’ VP of Operations, in Houston. “Some schools use underground parking garages, others use gyms or music halls. All of these shelters have hardened structures, restrooms, backup power, and air circulation systems,” says Moreau.
To keep its classrooms above the area’s seismic line, Seaside (Ore.) School District bought out nearby forestland and developed its own water reservoir for a new middle and high school campus, says David Chesley, PE, a Principal and Senior Electrical Engineer with Interface Engineering, which worked on that school’s mechanical/electrical design. BRIC Architecture designed the facility.
“Frankly, there’s funding available for this kind of thing,” says Gary Benson, Director of Project Planning and Development for Kraus-Anderson. One of his firm’s recent K-12 projects—a replacement school in Edina, Minn., that includes a tornado safe room—received some of its financing from FEMA. Another project—an elementary school for 100 students in North Dakota—was funded, in part, by a federal Emergency Impact Aid Grant (Kraus-Anderson helped that school district write its grant proposal).
See Also: Is STEM running out of steam?
But natural disasters might be the least that schools need to worry about, at a time when security is now a topic of intense national debate, and with good reason. In the first 21 weeks of 2018 alone, there were 23 school shootings where someone was killed or injured, according to CNN.
Community demand and support for securing schools are strong. But this problem is not new: Stantec has included secured vestibules in its school designs for at least 15 years, says Laura Flannery Sachtleben, a Principal in that firm’s Houston office. She and other AEC executives are the first to concede that design and construction can only do so much to help keep students safe.
A safety audit of Parker Junior High School in Flossmoor, Ill., School District 161 identified changes to improve the facility’s overall security. One was to modify the main entrance to limit access to the building. The New Entry Pavilion separates visitor seating in the vestibule from the student seating in the office area. Craig Dugan Photography.
“There’s still no consensus about what works,” admits Andrew Grote, Associate Principal and Technical Director with Perkins+Will, especially when security counters transparency, another equally palpable trend in the K-12 sector.
Nevertheless, in Texas, schools are being built with bulletproof glass and drywall, and tight access controls, says Moreau. California “isn’t at the bulletproof stage yet,” says Gill Fullen, VP of Education with Balfour Beatty’s office in Orange County. “School districts are trying to evaluate what security systems make sense, like cameras and entry control points, to minimize loss of life.”
Stantec has created a firmwide internal task force that’s been vetting a series of different technologies for school security that, says Sachtleben, are less intrusive and easier
to conceal.
Any strategy for securing schools needs to start at “saving as many seconds and minutes as possible,” asserts Stephen Raskin, AIA, NCARB, a Principal with FGM Architects in St. Louis. He notes that the shooting at Virginia Tech University in 2007 lasted 17 minutes, and 11 minutes at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., in 2012. The average time it takes first responders to arrive on the scene of an active shooting is 10 minutes, says Raskin.
FGM’s design strategies for school security stem from FEMA’s 428 guidelines and the Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design Association. Raskin says his firm’s solutions rely heavily on “human observation.” That means putting people at the school’s front door who can spot patterns in who’s coming and going. FGM’s school designs regularly advance the benefits of more and larger windows.
Security doesn’t have to be expensive. Raskin says ballistics-resistant window film costs about $15-$20 per sf. On the other hand, he’s dubious about whether security cameras, regardless of their ubiquity, actually deter shooters.
Other security and safety measures that FGM recommends to school districts include making corridors wider, moving the youngest students farther back in the building, allowing classrooms to be locked down individually from the inside, and making alerts as simple and clear as possible.
FGM recently worked with the NW R1 school district in Jefferson County, Mo., on a comprehensive assessment of its buildings to develop a long-range plan to establish safety priorities. The district identified 10-12 projects, and then held “listening sessions” with the public. The plan it came up with, claims Raskin, influenced the vote for a $14.5 million school bond that passed in April.
Related Stories
| Nov 9, 2010
Just how green is that college campus?
The College Sustainability Report Card 2011 evaluated colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada with the 300 largest endowments—plus 22 others that asked to be included in the GreenReportCard.org study—on nine categories, including climate change, energy use, green building, and investment priorities. More than half (56%) earned a B or better, but 6% got a D. Can you guess which is the greenest of these: UC San Diego, Dickinson College, University of Calgary, and Dartmouth? Hint: The Red Devil has turned green.
| Nov 3, 2010
First of three green labs opens at Iowa State University
Designed by ZGF Architects, in association with OPN Architects, the Biorenewable Research Laboratory on the Ames campus of Iowa State University is the first of three projects completed as part of the school’s Biorenewables Complex. The 71,800-sf LEED Gold project is one of three wings that will make up the 210,000-sf complex.
| Nov 3, 2010
Park’s green education center a lesson in sustainability
The new Cantigny Outdoor Education Center, located within the 500-acre Cantigny Park in Wheaton, Ill., earned LEED Silver. Designed by DLA Architects, the 3,100-sf multipurpose center will serve patrons of the park’s golf courses, museums, and display garden, one of the largest such gardens in the Midwest.
| Nov 3, 2010
Seattle University’s expanded library trying for LEED Gold
Pfeiffer Partners Architects, in collaboration with Mithun Architects, programmed, planned, and designed the $55 million renovation and expansion of Lemieux Library and McGoldrick Learning Commons at Seattle University. The LEED-Gold-designed facility’s green features include daylighting, sustainable and recycled materials, and a rain garden.
| Nov 3, 2010
Recreation center targets student health, earns LEED Platinum
Not only is the student recreation center at the University of Arizona, Tucson, the hub of student life but its new 54,000-sf addition is also super-green, having recently attained LEED Platinum certification.
| Nov 3, 2010
Designs complete for new elementary school
SchenkelShultz has completed design of the new 101,270-sf elementary Highlands Elementary School, as well as designs for three existing buildings that will be renovated, in Kissimmee, Fla. The school will provide 48 classrooms for 920 students, a cafeteria, a media center, and a music/art suite with outdoor patio. Three facilities scheduled for renovations total 19,459 sf and include an eight-classroom building that will be used as an exceptional student education center, a older media center that will be used as a multipurpose building, and another building that will be reworked as a parent center, with two meeting rooms for community use. W.G. Mills/Ranger is serving as CM for the $15.1 million project.
| Nov 3, 2010
Virginia biofuel research center moving along
The Sustainable Energy Technology Center has broken ground in October on the Danville, Va., campus of the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research. The 25,000-sf facility will be used to develop enhanced bio-based fuels, and will house research laboratories, support labs, graduate student research space, and faculty offices. Rainwater harvesting, a vegetated roof, low-VOC and recycled materials, photovoltaic panels, high-efficiency plumbing fixtures and water-saving systems, and LED light fixtures will be deployed. Dewberry served as lead architect, with Lord Aeck & Sargent serving as laboratory designer and sustainability consultant. Perigon Engineering consulted on high-bay process labs. New Atlantic Contracting is building the facility.
| Nov 3, 2010
Dining center cooks up LEED Platinum rating
Students at Bowling Green State University in Ohio will be eating in a new LEED Platinum multiuse dining center next fall. The 30,000-sf McDonald Dining Center will have a 700-seat main dining room, a quick-service restaurant, retail space, and multiple areas for students to gather inside and out, including a fire pit and several patios—one of them on the rooftop.
| Nov 2, 2010
Cypress Siding Helps Nature Center Look its Part
The Trinity River Audubon Center, which sits within a 6,000-acre forest just outside Dallas, utilizes sustainable materials that help the $12.5 million nature center fit its wooded setting and put it on a path to earning LEED Gold.
| Oct 27, 2010
Grid-neutral education complex to serve students, community
MVE Institutional designed the Downtown Educational Complex in Oakland, Calif., to serve as an educational facility, community center, and grid-neutral green building. The 123,000-sf complex, now under construction on a 5.5-acre site in the city’s Lake Merritt neighborhood, will be built in two phases, the first expected to be completed in spring 2012 and the second in fall 2014.