PHOENIX — It's one of the simplest lines of defense if an intruder gets into your child's school - a locked door.
The easiest way to make sure it's in place is if a teacher can lock it from the inside.
Yet, a survey from the National Center for Education Sciences shows one in four classroom doors across the country cannot lock from the inside.
ABC15 caught up with parents dropping their students off at a Mesa Public School last week.
"Safety is my number one concern for my children in school," said Sarah Odom.
In her child's school district, all classroom doors stay locked from the outside during the school day.
"I think it's a great safety measure, especially with everything that's been going on in the country with the school shootings and being able to keep our kids safe and protected," she said. "I'm definitely for it."
After the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, state public safety officials testified that classroom doors in the school could only be locked from the outside, not the inside.
It required teachers to open their doors, exposing the classroom and themselves, to lock them.
In one instance, a lock was even broken, allowing the shooter to access the classroom.
"If a teacher has to open the door and there's someone out, you know, causing something in the hallways, if she has to open the door in order to lock it, that doesn't seem right," said Odom. "I think something needs to change."
ABC15 looked into how different classroom doors operate at several school districts in the Valley, including Odom's.
Mesa Public Schools is the largest school district in the state, with 82 different schools and hundreds more classroom doors.
District Director of Security and Safety Allen Moore said that can provide a challenge in making uniform protocol for locks.
"Some of our buildings are quite old, so some of the locks can be locked from the inside and some couldn’t, so we thought, you know, with the idea that the active shooter is going to go down a hallway and basically look for an open door to get to a victim it made sense to slow that process down by keeping the doors locked during the academic school day," Moore said.
That protocol was put into place about four years ago, he said. Fire code also says people have to be able to exit a classroom safely and easily, which means they cannot be locked on the inside.
Moore said having classrooms locked from the outside, though, means anyone trying to get into a classroom during the school day has to be let in by someone inside, which can be a hassle.
During a lockdown, teachers and staff are required to do a brief sweep of the hallway outside their rooms for any teachers or students left behind, unless there is an immediate threat nearby.
He also said there are no requirements or recommendations to his knowledge outlined by the state of Arizona on how classroom doors should be secured.
Gilbert Public Schools also has locked classroom doors during the school day, but with a bit more elaborate mechanism.
Specially designed door magnets allow teachers and employees to keep doors locked, while still being able to use the doors during the day. Teachers can quickly remove the magnet without having to fully open the door.
Scottsdale Unified School District did not respond to a request for information on how its classroom doors operate, but their website states teachers must lock doors during a lockdown, just no mention of how.
After the airing of this story, Phoenix Union High School District responded to a request for information about how its schools’ classroom doors operate after several attempts from ABC15.
A spokesperson said, “We have concerns about public disclosure of items related to school security and believe it’s in the best interest of our students and community to not disclose specific information related to our school safety program.”
Of course, it's important to note that classroom door locks are just one tool in a district's safety toolbox.
"No one protocol is going to make your school safe," said Moore. "It's all the protocols working together and this is just one of many protocols that we have."
In 2015, the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission found in a report presented to Connecticut's governor at the time that, "there has never been an event in which an active shooter breached a locked classroom door."
The Commission also reiterated a recommendation in the report that "all classrooms in K-12 schools should be equipped with locked doors that can be locked from the inside by the classroom teacher or substitute."
