Clovis Unified School District to add automatic locking doors to schools

FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KFSN) -- The Clovis Unified School District is working to increase safety measures on school campuses.

Administrators are preparing to start rolling out a system they hope will keep kids safer for longer in case of an emergency.

About a year ago, the district rolled out the Catapult app.

It's an emergency notification app that can send an alert to all staff on a school campus in the case of an emergency.

Now that the app has been implemented, Administrator of Facilities Nick Mele says it is important they continue to find ways to increase safety.

"Now that we've got Catapult kind of going and people understand that a little bit more, we felt that it was the right time to roll out the next phase, which is these automatic locking doors," Mele said.

District policy already requires all classroom doors remain locked, but the new system would apply automatic locking devices to what they call 'unmanned doors,' such as doors to hallways or the doors to the administration building.

"We're electrifying the lock set here so that in the event of an emergency - our staff puts us in a lockdown - it will simply release the panic bar in this and it will automatically lock these doors," Mele said.

The system will first be implemented at three schools: Clovis High School, Fort Washington Elementary School, and Bud Rank Elementary School.

Then it will start to expand district-wide.

Administrators say they hope this helps lock down the school faster and provides valuable extra time for first responders to arrive in an emergency.

"By automating some of these things, it allows our employees to focus on what's important, which is making sure that our students and staff are safe," Mele said.

The district expects the first three schools to be fully equipped by the middle of January, and then they will continue to roll out the system district-wide.

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