AN INSIDE JOB: Teachers Antsy For New Doorknobs

Salary. Class sizes. Too many tests. Ask any teacher about these educational topics and you will need to free up some time to hear about the frustrations they experience.
But doorknobs? Who knew the simple device could create such angst in teachers.
For the past few years, Highland teachers have been promised new doorknobs for their classrooms. This is because the current doorknobs lock from the outside, meaning they are harder to secure in the case of an emergency. The new knobs would allow teachers to lock their classrooms from the inside and keep students safer from a potential threat.
Teachers have been promised the new hardware for three years, but supply complications led to a delay…and then more delays. There were not enough to supply the entire district, so the replacements are being done in phases.
At this point, the Salt Lake City School District has replaced doorknobs in all but two of the elementary schools. This was phase one of the process. The second phase will include a couple of the middle schools and all of the high schools. But this will not happen anytime soon.
“They’re working on getting bids for the next phase of it right now,” the executive director of auxiliary services at SLCSD Isaac Astill said. “The goal is that this will be completed by the end of next year.”
If all goes well with the bids, the process for replacing doorknobs would begin in the spring. The money for the project will come from the district’s general funds and the first phase—the elementary schools—cost about $1 million. According to Highland Principal Jeremy Chatterton, replacing doorknobs in Highland alone would be around $200,000.
Part of the impetus for replacing doorknobs was the removal of Lock Blocks in October of 2022. The Utah State Fire Marshall declared teachers’ Lock Blocks to be against the fire code and had them removed from the school. The blocks were small pieces of plastic that fitted onto a door and had a latch that could be pushed out to block the door from closing all the way. With the Lock Blocks, teachers were able to keep their doors locked throughout the day and still allowed students to easily enter a room.
When the Lock Blocks were removed, teachers were told they would have new doorknobs by the end of the school year. Now, two years later, teachers are still waiting for their new knobs.
“I think part of the confusion was, at the at time, they were starting to discuss the potential rebuild of [the] high school,” Chatterton said. “They were wondering if they wanted to put that money into [new doorknobs], but they were a little bit premature on that.”
If the bond is passed to rebuild the high schools this fall, the new building would still not be ready for years. And for Highland teachers, students’ safety matters now.
“This is a very simple, very easy thing that can be done. […] And what I found is that the district says they prioritize safety with having weapons detectors and with a lot of the policy that they put into place with training and all that stuff,” Highland science teacher Nancy Wright said. “However, something as simple as this has taken years [and] that’s completely inexcusable. And knock on wood that nothing happens and we’re safe and we’re fine.”
The current doorknobs create challenges for teachers if there was an emergency and classrooms needed to be locked. Some teachers keep their doors unlocked during the day and if the building was put into lockdown, these teachers would need to fully exit their rooms to lock the doors from the outside. This puts the teacher into a position where they are unsafe but also leaves the students unprotected from someone who could enter the classroom.
Most teachers, however, choose to keep their doors constantly locked. This means students and teachers are safer in an emergency, but locked doors cause disruptions during an ordinary school day. Students get locked out when teachers close the door to block out hallway noise and have to knock to be let in. It disrupts the class, and teachers don’t appreciate being interrupted by a student returning from the bathroom.
Some teachers prop their doors open with trashcans or other objects to keep them from closing all the way and locking. Wright came up with a unique system for keeping her door from locking. She looped a disposable mask between the handles on either side of the door, blocking the lock from clicking into place when the door is closed.
“At the end of the day, this system is fine that I’ve worked out and yeah, it hasn’t affected me drastically and we haven’t had an incident, but I know there are some teachers who don’t have something like this [set up],” Wright said. “I still think school is incredibly safe. I do think that at Highland High, we’re all very smart and intellectual teachers, we can take care and keep our students safe. I trust my peers with my kids, and I think it’s just a failure of the district to give us very basic things. It’s frustrating.”