Upstate Lowdown: How does security factor into designing a new school?

There’s a lot that goes into the design of a new school.

Infrastructure, class room sizes, location, traffic flow: the list of considerations involved in creating an optimal learning space for hundreds or thousands of children is a long one. Near the top of that list is safety.

Earl B. Melton, a Spartanburg resident, said he drives by Drayton Mills Elementary School often and wonders if the facility is being built with the students’ safety in mind. That curiosity prompted him to reach out to Upstate Lowdown, a Herald-Journal and GoUpstate.com feature that attempts to answer readers' questions.

Spartanburg School District 7 Superintendent Russell Booker said Drayton Mills Elementary and the new Spartanburg High School were designed with the security of students, teachers and staff in mind.

“We are doing a wonderful job, I think, of putting security features in place to make sure we’re providing maximum security, while at the same time, not compromising our primary role of educating our children,” he said.

Assistant Superintendent for Administration Thomas White said district officials talked extensively with law enforcement, fire departments, the state Office of School Facilities, design firms and other school districts to make the new schools as safe as possible.

Unlike the old Spartanburg High School, where students would sometimes have to leave a secure area to get from one part of the campus to another, White said the grounds of the new facility were laid out so, even when outside, students will be in a more self-contained area.

Both Drayton Mills and the new Spartanburg High will also include external and internal security cameras that can be viewed by the schools’ principals, staff and from the district office at any time, said Eric Levitt, assistant superintendent of planning and innovation. The cameras provide 100 percent coverage of the schools, Levitt said.

“We take the approach of starting with the perimeter of the school and then working your way into the school in terms of security features,” he said.

Levitt said technology plays a key role in the schools’ security measures. Teachers will have access to intercoms in classrooms and carry communication devices around their necks that allow them to communicate directly with the front office.

Every door into the buildings is set on an automatic timer, Levitt said, and any member of the faculty will also be able to instantly put the schools on lock down from an exterior door.

District administrators said they also took features such as security at the primary entrance, line-of-sight and traffic safety into consideration when designing the school.