Michigan school designed with curved corridors and walls for hiding to protect from gun attacks
A new high school under construction in the US is being designed in a way to protect children from any potential gun attacks.
Superintendent Bob Szymoniak said they had “no choice” but to think about such security when designing Fruitport High School in Michigan.
The school has been designed with curved corridors to restrict an assailant’s line of sight and wing walls to give children something to hide behind during an attack.
“You have no idea how horribly I feel about when I think about these things, when I think about the children having to worry about it,” said Mr Szymoniak.
Lockers will not be installed in the corridors, instead short lockers will be set up in a common area so teachers can see all 900 students.
Wing walls - small walls built into the corridor sides – will also be included by the door in classrooms to partially block an attacker’s view of the classroom from outside.
“It was designed as a curve for a couple of reasons and one of the reasons is to cut down on the line of sight of an active shooter,” explained Mr Szymoniak.
“God forbid that we have one, and we also installed these wing walls to provide safety for students to hide behind if there is a threat down the hallway.”
The school will even have a function that will allow teachers to lock down specific parts of the school, which could trap the attacker.
A grant from Michigan State Police paid for impact-resistant film on windows too.
Meggan Johnson, whose children are still in elementary school, helped to raise money for the project. Her children do not know a world without school shootings.
ITV News Correspondent Rebecca Barry reports from the newly-built school
“It kind of gives me the goosebumps thinking about it but, I mean, it’s the world that they live in and it’s what they know and hopefully we can just make it so it’s not something they have to focus on.”
The school’s hope is that when students fill the corridors in January they will see areas for small group work rather than security measures.