Although the schools in Providence, Rhode Island, are supposed to be inspected by code officials annually, some had not been inspected for 10 YEARS. I wonder how many public schools are in the same boat?
In other news, a 2nd/3rd grade class at St. Theresa’s School got stuck in their classroom and the door couldn’t even be opened by 7 firefighters. No word on the cause, but the 23 trapped kids did eventually make it to the restroom.
But wait! There’s more!
Firefighters free girl’s arm from school door – The Telegraph
Eichen said the girl had propped open the door and was holding it for other students to go through when her elbow slipped behind the U-shaped lever and got stuck. He said the girl tried for five minutes to free herself, and when a teacher discovered she was stuck, school officials called 911.
Three fire code violations found in former PNC Bank building – Herald-Mail.com
Listed as violations of the city fire prevention code are:
• Fire-rated door at the first-floor front stairwell would not close by itself, as is required.
• Fire-rated doors at the third-floor front stairwell and third-floor front lobby “are damaged and would not self close.”
• A fire-rated door, which is required along the first-floor corridor, has been removed.
The bunch of keys which unlock drawbridges, were in a metal box which was meant to have been securely locked, the Sun reported. As a result of the embarrassing security blunder the locks had to be changed, at an estimated cost of thousands of pounds.
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“the door couldn’t even be opened by 7 firefighters.”
They should have called the custodian.
Seriously, don’t these classrooms have connecting doors?
The classroom had a sliding door that had been sealed shut and painted over. Now you’ve got me wondering…are the connecting doors for convenience or an egress requirement?
I thought unless the building is sprinklered, the connecting doors allow occupants to pass through rooms to get you onto the otherside of fire doors and/or smoke partitions.
That’s probably true. It’s been a while since I worked on an unsprinklered school but the connecting doors still seem to be pretty common.
Not normally
Would go back to ahj or size of room
The three school districts in Florida my kids went to or my girlfriend works in, connecting doors are not common. One district did have some rooms with an outside door. Most were new buildings under 12 years old.
Unfortunately, an economic decision in lots of modernization programs out here in CA. Exstg classrooms have sliding partition doors that were largely unused and/or in disrepair, so they’re left in place but sealed shut — bldg code had changed since original construction, the classroom entry doors would have to be fitted with ‘expensive’ panic hardware due to occupant capacity of the large room when the partition is folded/retracted. I’m thinking that panic hardware wouldn’t have failed like this classroom’s lockset apparently did.