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Keep it simple: Designing the school of the future to keep students safe
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Keep it simple: Designing the school of the future to keep students safe

On the Security Today Podcast we discuss if there will be 10,000 shootings at schools in 2030 and the future of school security if we use better data to inform planning and campus design.

On the latest episode of The Room Where It Happen with Baer Halvorson, we talked about a path forward 25 years after Columbine as school shootings are more frequent and more deadly. The status quo isn’t working. Is this because using the wrong planning assumptions two decades ago made school security more complicated than it needs to be?

We also discussed school security issues including:

  • Failures at Uvalde are the same systemic problems that never got fixed after 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina.

  • How kids get access to firearms and new trend of teens habitually carrying guns at school all day.

  • Most common profile of a school shooter.

  • Using the same resources to prevent both community gun violence and planned attacks.

  • Types of attacks a school needs to be prepared for ranging from snipers to hostage standoffs.

  • Predictions for 5-10 years from now based on data analysis.

  • What’s the one thing I would change in the design of every school building? Two exits from every classroom so kids can get out quickly during an emergency.


David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database and a national expert on school shootings. Listen to my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and Iowa Public Radio the day after the Perry High shooting.

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