It seems far-fetched today, but there once was a time when visitors under most circumstances could freely enter and exit a school building without much scrutiny from school staff members.

Generally speaking, vendors, volunteers, and parents commonly undergo a battery of tests today to go beyond the front office and gain access to classrooms — and for obvious reasons.

As high-profile school shootings have dominated headlines in recent decades, district administrators, boards of education, and other authorities have made sweeping changes to try to secure facilities during the regular instructional day.

The ebb and flow of school shooting statistics

Data from the National Center for Education Statistics indicates school shootings were back on the upswing in the years leading up to the pandemic and rose sharply in the 2021-22 school year — the most recent year comprehensive data is available — as most districts resumed full-time in-person learning.

According to the center’s figures, 188 school shootings were reported in the 2021-22 school year. Of that figure, 57 of the incidents resulted in fatalities, while 131 of the shootings were injuries only.

National data from the preceding five years is as follows: 39 shootings (26 injury-only, 13 fatalities) in the 2016-17 school year, 59 shootings (37 injury-only, 22 fatalities) in 2017-18, 78 shootings (45 injury-only, 33 fatalities) in 2018-19, 78 shootings (51 injury-only, 27 fatalities) in 2019-20 and 93 shootings (50 injury-only, 43 fatalities) in 2020-21.

What is being done to increase school security

Name badges, door buzzers, bullet proof glass and indoor classroom locks are just a few of the ways schools have adjusted protocols and building features to keep students safe during the instructional day.

Many of the steps in place today in nationwide school districts apply to all grade levels — from elementary grades, where students are under constant supervision of a teacher or staffer, to high school, where students roam more freely from class to class.

According to the Pew Research Center, nearly all public K-12 schools today (98%) require visitors to sign in at the front office and wear name badges. Other common practices are school include safety drills (98%), controlled access measures to school buildings (97%) and implementing a written plan for an active shooter scenario (96%).