![]() ![]() “I’m honestly proud of my school system for having it ready to go so quickly, and how the commissioners and Board of Education were able to come up with the funding so quickly as well,” Akers says. There were thoughts of doing fundraisers, or even asking parents to consider sponsoring a door, but in the end, the Board of Education and Currituck County Commissioners found a way to pay for the devices, and they were installed before students arrived for the 2018-19 school year. There were plenty of questions, of course, including on how to pay for something needed for countless classroom and office doors at 10 schools. ![]() “I just knew there was a lot of pressure from the parents as well, to implement something that could help our school system.”Īkers met with Currituck County Sheriff Matthew Beickert to get his advice, researched a variety of products on the market, then prepared and delivered a presentation to the school board. “It was slow moving at first and then we knew we had to get the ball rolling faster,” Akers recalls. Then came the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. She and her dad – a Currituck County sheriff’s deputy – started talking about school safety plans. Akers, meanwhile, spent her junior and senior year as a Board of Education junior member.Īttending all those BOE meetings got Akers thinking about ways to help the school system. He represents the high school on the county’s school safety committee. Walls has spent 25 years in education and has been a principal and assistant principal in his 12 years in Currituck. “The only point of it is to slow the school shooter down and give the police more time to respond.” “I’ve never heard of a school shooting yet where anybody comes in with a sledgehammer,” Walls says. ![]() (See the video for yourself at /watch?v=taOFk38iEHM) That video impressed CCHS Assistant Principal Phil Walls when he did his research. In videos produced by Nightlock, repeated attempts at breaking through a door by kicking it, running into it and even using tools fail time and again. For about $50 per device, consumers get a door plate, floor plate and locking handle that combine to keep a door closed in the face of blunt force. ![]() The Michigan company devised the Nightlock system as a simple yet highly effective tool to keep people safe behind an impenetrable door. Here’s hoping the folks at Nightlock don’t hear about that fun fact. “A lot of the teachers go by ‘Jenna Locks,’ ” she says with a laugh. What did prove surprising to the 2018 CCHS graduate was that before she headed to Chapel Hill for her freshman year of college, Nightlock Lockdown door barricade devices had been discussed, approved, funded and installed in all 10 Currituck County Schools.Īnother surprise, of course, came when Akers learned what many of the teachers at her old high school are calling the Nightlock Lockdown devices. It should come as no surprise in today’s news cycle that Akers spent time thinking about school shootings and school safety procedures during her high school days. It just takes one person to take the initiative to implement something like this.” “I’ve had a lot of past teachers and administrators reach out to me saying that it’s so great for someone to take the initiative. “I just knew I wanted to do something that would benefit every student and the teachers and staff at every school, and this was the perfect solution,” Jenna Akers explains. ![]()
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