KARE-TV in Minneapolis is raising worthwhile questions about whether school administrators could make classrooms safer by using safety glass or safety film over school windows.
The question arose after a student went on a rampage at a Minnesota school this year. The middle-school student broke the windows out of locked classroom doors and attempted to fire a pistol. The weapon jammed. Five years earlier, another school shooter broke the window out of a “locked down” classroom door and killed six students.
KARE reporter Boyd Huppert began wondering what good it does to lock down a school or a classroom if a shooter has only to break out a door window to get in.
Huppert wrote:
“At one time nearly all interior school windows were made of plate glass. It was cheap, but when shattered, broke into shards that could cut students. Eventually states, including Minnesota, altered their building codes for new schools to require tempered in student traffic areas. Smash it, and tempered glass breaks into tiny blunt pieces that won’t cut anyone — much better for school safety, but still lacking for security.
” ‘My bottom line is this, I don’t like tempered glass,’ said Paul Timm, a school security consultant with RETA Security in Lemont, Illinois. ‘I don’t like tempered glass because if you hit it hard enough it’s going to be able to break and then I’m going to be in.’
“Instead, Timm believes impact resistant laminated glass — similar to the glass used in car windshields — should be required by building codes for use in and near classroom doors. Laminated glass will still crack when struck hard with a baseball bat or crowbar, but unlike plate or tempered glass, laminated glass will maintain its integrity through multiple blows.
“Another option for existing windows is impact resistant film applied on the outside of glass. Like laminated glass, the film, made by 3M and Madico among other companies, keeps windows in one piece even when the glass underneath shatters.”
Huppert found that when a school replaced the tempered glass with safer laminated glass, the cost was about $60 per door, or about $2,100 for an entire school.
Huppert’s story got me thinking about window safety for schools in tornado-prone areas. It is hard to imagine why any school district would build a new school without shatterproof windows. It seems that schools would see shatterproof glass as a way to prevent vandalism, too.
Additional resources
- “Texas security camera captures frustrated thieves unable to break through 3M window film” — Video provided by Tim’s Window Tinting, Dallas.
- “Demonstration of treated and untreated windows” — Video provided by Madico and ENPRO Distributing.