Security Steps Said to Avert More Deaths at Conn. School

A Connecticut state trooper mans a checkpoint on the road leading towards Sandy Hook Elementary School on Monday in Newtown, Conn.

—Jason DeCrow/AP

Experts warn against knee-jerk changes elsewhere

By Nirvi Shah

By nearly all accounts, the administrators, teachers, and students at Sandy Hook elementary did everything right Friday—and long before that day—when a young man armed with powerful weapons blasted his way into the school with gunfire .

A school security system delayed the shooter, at least by a few seconds, from just walking through the front door. A secretary switched on the Newtown, Conn., school’s public address system as shots rang out, alerting the entire school that something was amiss without saying a word. Teachers and other school employees quickly herded students into closets, kept them quiet, and locked their doors while the principal and school psychologist tried to act as human shields.

“At Sandy Hook, a number of things went very well,” said Ronald Stephens, the executive director of the National School Safety Center , an advocacy and advisory group in Westlake Village, Calif. But when someone is intent upon committing an act of crime or violence, “we have to realize that even on the best of days schools have certain limitations,” he said. “The standard of care that schools have at the end of the day... is whether or not the...