Unveiling the 7 Essential Steps for Auditing Standard Exterior School Doors

Ensuring school safety starts with something as fundamental as properly functioning exterior doors.

However, effective security requires more than just checking if a door is locked. That’s why we’ve developed a comprehensive 7-step guide for standard exterior school doors—one that goes beyond a simple lock check to include pressure tests, closer assessments, and emergency panic bar evaluations. These often-overlooked inspections are critical for ensuring doors function as intended in everyday situations and emergency scenarios alike.

Beyond Locked or Unlocked: The Importance of Thorough Audits With growing concerns over school security, locked doors have become a key point of discussion. However, ensuring that every exterior door is both secured and fully operational is a significant challenge, particularly on large campuses with numerous entry points. While physically checking hundreds of doors daily isn’t practical, breaking audits into smaller, consistent efforts on a weekly basis makes this task manageable and effective.

By conducting weekly door audits, schools can systematically verify that every exterior door meets security standards. While audit steps may vary slightly depending on the door, consistency is key. As anyone familiar with school operations knows, doors are subject to a range of failures—both human errors and hardware malfunctions—that can severely compromise security.

In our guide, "Understanding Door Failures: A Critical Step in School Safety," we’ve identified 26 common door issues that affect performance. Schools that proactively address these issues can mitigate security risks before they escalate into major safety concerns.

Building a Culture of Safety Routine door audits do more than identify vulnerabilities—they help create a culture of safety within schools. By adopting these 7 essential steps and committing to regular checks, schools can significantly reduce security risks, prevent operational failures, and reinforce a proactive security mindset across campuses.

Making Audits Seamless with DoorCheck To streamline this process, we provide our customers with detailed audit guides through our app. These digital tools ensure that:

✔️ Each step is followed accurately

✔️ Audit results are logged in real-time

✔️ Schools maintain the highest safety standards

By equipping schools with the right tools and procedures, we help administrators, safety personnel, and facility teams protect students and staff with confidence.