Building Safety Into Schools

Lockdowns. Perimeter fencing. Security cameras. Access control. The terms might seem more suited to maximum-security prisons than campuses full of children. But those are among the concerns driving school design these days, particularly in urban districts, where parents are apt to worry more about whether their children are safe on campus than about what they’re learning in science class.

Now, as the Los Angeles Unified School District embarks on its most ambitious school construction and renovation project since the 1960s, the challenge it faces is creating schools that accommodate each neighborhood’s needs and keep kids safe without promoting a fortress mentality.

Architects got a reality check at a community meeting at Manual Arts High School last month.

While they were touting the “academy configuration” and “collaborative learning environment” of design options for a new high school to be built nearby, parents and school officials were wondering whether the parking garage could be constructed alongside the playing fields to shield kids during PE classes from harassment by gang members cruising down Hoover Street. The proposed designs were lovely, one father told them in Spanish, “but the first thing we want for our children is safety.”

Of course, true safety requires a community committed to reducing gang violence and other crime, but if architects can help right now, so much the better.

It is the violence sloshing over from surrounding streets that threatens children at schools like South Park Elementary at Manchester Avenue and Avalon Boulevard, where students have learned to distinguish the long bell that signals “lockdown” from the one that announces a fire drill, and morning assemblies include reminders that “if we hear gunshots, we don’t run away, but drop down in place.”

On their wish list for renovation? A concrete wall to replace the chain-link fence that surrounds the kindergarten yard. “Somebody can say it won’t look nice,” said Assistant Principal Alfonso Jimenez, “but it’ll hold a bullet.”

The new campuses on the drawing board offer options that combine aesthetics with security. Decorative grilles replace chain-link fences; controlled-access entries open away from busy streets; hallways and grounds can be monitored via Internet feeds. Open layouts, better lighting and judicious use of shrubbery reduce hidden spaces and make the campuses more welcoming.

The innovations won’t make schools danger-free, but they are a healthy step away from the wire fences and clanging bells that keep kids on edge in pursuit of security.