One ACSA school leader has developed an innovative way to ensure the safety of students and teachers during emergency school lockdowns.

Joe Rancatore, interim principal at Pleasant Valley Middle School in the Gold Oak Union SD, has created a lockset that allows teachers to lock a classroom or office door from the inside, rather than having to step outside to lock the door from the outside with a key.

Rancatore has been developing the retrofit device for the last five years, having come up with a half-dozen models before perfecting the final version. Rancatore said he began the process out of a desire to protect schools from violence.

“I’ve always been concerned about student and staff safety,” he said. “I realized how vulnerable schools are.”

Rancatore’s retrofit device can be unlocked at the start of the day, then re-locked while open from the outside. While the door is open, the door lock is set in the vertical position by turning the lever handle downward. The retrofit device applies pressure on the lockset, which in turn prevents the dead latch spring from being returned to the locked position until the lever is turned manually to the horizontal position, which locks the door from the inside. While the throw latch is in, the door is in a free-swinging mode, and it only takes 3-5 seconds to secure and lock the door from the inside in the event of an emergency.

“Teachers don’t want to step outside with a key to lock the door,” Rancatore said. “This is in a free-swinging mode throughout the day, and in an emergency, the teacher can simply turn the handle.”

The locksets are already in use at Mountain Creek Middle School in the Pioneer Union ESD, where Rancatore was interim principal for several years. In fact, he named the device the Pioneer Retrofit Locking System after the district.

For more information on the retrofit devices, contact Matt Dethardt at Hodge Products, Inc. at (800) 854-3565.