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IN SESSION: Local teen helps protect schools from active shooter threats

A North Carolina School Board has invested in a student's idea to better protect their schools. Now every classroom in the county is equipped with a new door lock system.

CURRITUCK COUNTY, N.C. — A North Carolina teenager is making it her mission to make schools safer, and she’s starting with her hometown in Currituck County.

Jenna Akers pushed for a new lock system last year that protects students from the threat of active shooters.

“I began to think of safety because if you turned on the news, you would see stories about school shootings,” she said.

Akers, 18, is the daughter of a Currituck County sheriff’s deputy and said she was inspired to make a difference after last year’s school shootings in Parkland, Florida and Marshall County, Kentucky.

She began researching ways to better harden school targets and brought the idea to her father. The two discovered an existing device called the “Nightlock Lockdown” that helps lock classroom doors and buy time while police respond.

“My dad loved the idea,” Akers said. “I think he always had this idea in the back of his head. So when I came up to him, he knew he wanted to do it and instantly began researching it.”

Akers was a 17-year-old high school senior when she presented her idea to the Currituck County School Board last spring. The board approved the project and the locks were installed over the summer. Currituck County officials now refer to the system as the “Jenna Locks," which are found in every Currituck County school.

“To see how quickly it became a reality and how the teachers are responding to it, it is mind-blowing,” she said.

Akers traveled back home in December to watch the students at Moyock Elementary participate in an active-shooter drill.

“Now instead of the teacher taking their keys and having to make sure it's locked, even if they forget that process, they can shut the door and take the Jenna Lock and put it in position to make sure the door doesn’t open,” explained Principal Brandi Kelly.

Akers is now studying Peace, War and Defense at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill with a concentration in intelligence studies. She’s also studying Arabic and would like to one day work for the Defense Department, CIA, FBI, or similar federal department.

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