New York City will start locking the front doors of elementary schools to protect against mass shootings

• NYC will begin locking the main doors of elementary schools starting next month.
• The move is in response to the threat of mass shootings across the country.

In response to the threat posed by school shootings across the United States, New York City public schools will begin locking their front doors and requiring staff to buzz in visitors next month.

"Something that keeps me up at night is when I look around the country and I see the issues that are happening with these mass shootings," New York City Schools Chancellor David Banks said during a school safety briefing on Friday.

Banks said the initiative will begin with elementary schools before expanding to all other public schools in the upcoming months.

"That is a different level of safety. That's not the daily issues that we're looking at, but that is meant to prevent the mass tragedies that we've been seeing all too often across the nation," Banks said. "And we're going to do everything we can to prevent something like that from happening."

The new system will mean that schools will now have cameras and buzzers installed. School safety agents who already sign in visitors will now monitor those cameras. The entrances will remain open for school arrivals and dismissals.

In February, the city's Panel for Educational Policy approved a $43 million contract with Symbrant Technologies, Inc. to implement the initiative, Chalkbeat reported.

Banks first introduced the idea of locking main entrances to schools in May 2022, following the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas that left 19 students and two teachers dead, the Gothamist reported.

There have been multiple mass shootings since Uvalde, including at an elementary school in Nashville, Tenn. late last month that left three students and three staff members dead.