The Bulletproof Classroom: Armored Whiteboards Defend Against School Shootings

By John Cloud

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Photograph by Brian Finke

A Worcester Prep teacher in Berlin, Md., demonstrates his new shield

After the atrocity in Newtown, Conn., in December 2012, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza killed 20 six- and seven-year-olds and six adult staffers at Sandy Hook Elementary, legislators around the country grasped for ways to prevent another such disaster. Some proposed arming school guards; others moved to ban guns from being kept at school by anyone. Debates raged over spending on metal detectors, more surveillance, combat training for teachers, and blastproof locks on classroom doors. In the wake of every school shooting since the 1999 Columbine massacre, these discussions have been endless because the stakes are so high and the solutions so imperfect. Lock every door, and the gunman can still shoot through a window. Arm the principal with a gun, and the shooter might disarm her, kill her, and gain another weapon.

A businessman named George Tunis III read about Sandy Hook with horror. He has two kids—a 15-year-old girl and a 13-year-old
boy—and couldn’t imagine getting a call from their school that the worst had happened. Millions of parents have shared his fear, but Tunis is in a unique position to do something about it: He manufactures light armor designed to protect people from not only bullets, but also bombs.
His company, Hardwire, was one of the principal contractors armoring vehicles and buildings during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. From a modest red-brick building hard upon the Pocomoke River on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Tunis, ebullient and surprisingly easygoing for a man in the war business, shipped enough armor for 126 military vehicles a week during the mid-2000s. (He estimates Hardwire armored 5,000 vehicles in all.) If he could make light armor tough enough to protect service members from an improvised explosive device, surely he could make something teachers could use to protect kids from the next Adam Lanza.

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Photograph by Brian FinkeThe Hardwire board has basic directions in the event of emergency
Tunis came up with the idea of lining the handheld, portable whiteboards commonly used in schools with panels made from Dyneema, a polyethylene fiber strong enough to stop a shotgun blast from a foot away and light enough to wear all day. Emily Heinauer, director of special projects for Hardwire, says the company has sold its 20-by-18-inch whiteboards in all 50 states—some to school districts and some to individual teachers who find them online. In addition to the bulletproof whiteboards, Tunis makes a 10-by-13-inch clipboard weighing 1.3 pounds intended for kids to use if a gunman comes into the room. Hardwire recently sold 61 clipboards, which retail for $129, at half price to Worcester County, Md., where the company is based. Many of the first orders came from nearby clients—the University of Maryland Eastern Shore spent $60,000 on whiteboards last year. And after the Today show featured them on the 12th anniversary of Sept. 11, orders began pouring in from all over the country.

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According to the Department of Education, the U.S. has a pool of more than $95 million in grants intended to help states develop emergency plans for schools. The money has helped spur a range of products that purport to help school districts defend themselves against mass shootings. Along with Hardwire, at least seven other companies are trying to win government money by armoring schools. ProTecht, based in Edmond, Okla., sells blankets that the company claims can “resist” bullets and projectiles thrown by tornadoes. BulletBlocker of Danvers, Mass., sells backpack armor, though many kids don’t have quick access to their backpacks during class. Fighting Chance Solutions of Muscatine, Iowa, sells $65 sleeves that encase and disable the closing mechanisms at the top of doors in many public buildings. The sleeves make the doors virtually impossible to open. Strangest of all, Armour Wear, based in Miami, makes bulletproof underwear ($349 for three pairs). Chief Executive Officer Robert Scott says he got the idea after watching his son’s peewee football team change their clothes after a game.
Such odd inspirations are bound to come up when fear rises and money is thrown at the problem. They also raise questions: If we aren’t going to militarize our schools with armed guards and combat-trained teachers—the offensive solution—are we ready for antiballistic armor in every classroom, perhaps in every kid’s backpack—a defensive solution, but one that still makes schools seem like war zones? Introducing military-grade equipment into schools could become a virtual invitation for sociopathic adolescents to show up with their weaponry and try to beat the system, like the next level of a first-person shooter video game. Whiteboards and clipboards may seem like small obstructions for determined killers like Lanza and so many others.