No one wants to think about the horror of gun violence in our children’s schools. And yet, school shootings have joined the dangerous threats of fires and earthquakes. The danger of fire and earthquakes has been addressed by building codes enacted in response to the death of over 90 children at Our Lady of the Angels School fire in 1958. As a result of these sweeping codes, no child has been killed in a school fire since the 1958 school fire. These codes have been built into school architecture, resulting in the virtual elimination of the threat of fire in our schools.  Likewise, the adoption of earthquake building codes has successfully protected our children from the danger of earthquake.

 

Astonishingly, despite the ongoing catastrophe of our children being shot and killed in their classrooms, school shootings have not been afforded the same legislative attention. School shootings are not even legally recognized as public emergency safety hazards!

 

The Safe Zone Solution has been formed to address this terrible oversight. Our program involves two simple adjustments to the building code that will drastically mitigate mass casualty by creating safe zones:

 

• Placing polycarbonate glazing on all exterior entry points denying forced entry, and on all interior glass classroom panels and faculty office spaces

 

• A minimum level 5 bullet resistant classroom door placed on all classrooms, faculty rooms, and other office spaces.

 

These simple features will work in the same way as fire prevention codes to protect our children from school shootings, and to bring an end to our national nightmare.