Indiana names unauthorized access, interior rooms, and the hours before and after school. Then it sets no date for looking again.
THE REQUIREMENT
Indiana writes the most specific access language in this group and attaches no clock to it. Every school corporation and charter school must develop a school safety plan, and the plan must include a site vulnerability assessment for each school building and provisions to prevent unauthorized access to school property and interior areas or rooms before, during, and after regular school hours. The statute defines what that assessment examines. It never says how often any of it must happen again.
The duty is universal. It falls on every school corporation and charter school, not only on those accepting state money. That distinction matters, because Indiana also runs a grant program with its own assessment precondition, and the two are easy to confuse.
What makes Indiana unusual is the vocabulary. Most states in this group require an assessment and leave its contents entirely open. Indiana defines the term, and the definition includes accessibility.
Each row is quoted from Ind. Code chapter 10-21-1. Read in order they describe a detailed one-time obligation with no recurrence attached.
| Provision | What it says | What follows from it |
|---|---|---|
| 10-21-1-10(c)(2)(E) the assessment | The plan "must include a site vulnerability assessment for each school building" | Per building, not per district, and it lives inside the plan rather than as a separate exercise |
| 10-21-1-1 the definition | A site vulnerability assessment is "an examination of the physical safety, security, accessibility, and emergency preparedness of buildings and grounds" | Accessibility is named. Doors are not, but the assessment plainly reaches how a building can be entered |
| 10-21-1-10(c)(2)(B) the access provision | Provisions to "prevent unauthorized access to school property and interior areas or rooms, including the management of authorized visitors on school property, before, during, and after regular school hours" | An outcome obligation covering all hours. No hardware, lock, or door procedure is prescribed to achieve it |
| 10-21-1-11 and 10-21-1-12 the cycle | The plan is presented to the governing body in executive session before filing, and county school safety commissions "shall receive the school safety plans" | No interval is set for review, update, or re-assessment. The only annual duty in the chapter is the commission reporting on itself |
TWO DUTIES, OFTEN CONFUSED
Universal. Every school corporation and charter school develops a safety plan, and the plan must contain a site vulnerability assessment for each school building plus provisions preventing unauthorized access at all hours.
This obligation exists whether or not the school ever applies for a dollar of state funding.
Conditional. Before applying for a Secured School Safety Grant, a school must certify to the Department of Homeland Security that it conducted a site vulnerability assessment for each building it uses.
Missing this bars the application. It does not create the underlying assessment duty, which the plan statute already imposes on everyone.
The plan is presented to the governing body in executive session before it is filed, and the county school safety commission receives it. The chapter provides no inspection regime and no penalty for a deficient plan.
The only concrete consequence attached to a missing assessment is the narrow one: a school that has not certified an assessment cannot apply for a Secured School Safety Grant.
2024 legislation added a multi-disciplinary threat assessment team to the required plan contents, with a compliance date of July 1, 2025. Charter schools in operation by July 1, 2023 were brought under the plan requirement by July 1, 2024.
No statewide exterior-door mandate was introduced or enacted between 2024 and 2026. A separate fire-safety provision permits barricading a door for a short interval while an unplanned fire alarm is investigated, which is a permission rather than a requirement.
AFTER THE ASSESSMENT
Indiana asks for an examination of physical safety, security, and accessibility, and asks for provisions that prevent unauthorized access before, during, and after school hours. It sets no date to check either again. Whatever fills that gap is a local decision.
The access provision reaches the hours before and after school, which is exactly when a walk-through is not happening. Continuous open-or-closed status on every monitored door, plus a time-stamped event log, is evidence about those hours rather than a statement of intent about them.
A contact sensor proves that a door is closed. It never proves that the door is latched or locked.
Monitoring is not a site vulnerability assessment and does not satisfy any part of Ind. Code 10-21-1-10.
Learn about door monitoring, or return to the school door security guide.
These answers separate the universal plan duty from the grant condition, define the assessment, and state plainly what the chapter never schedules.
No. Indiana sets no statewide requirement that school exterior doors stay locked during the school day, and no duty to sweep, log, or monitor them. What it requires is a school safety plan containing a site vulnerability assessment for each school building and provisions to prevent unauthorized access to school property and interior areas or rooms before, during, and after regular school hours.
The statute defines it. Under IC 10-21-1-1, a site vulnerability assessment means an examination of the physical safety, security, accessibility, and emergency preparedness of buildings and grounds. Accessibility is named in the definition, which is why Indiana reaches closer to doors than most states in this group without ever naming a door.
School corporations and charter schools. Unlike states whose assessment duty is a condition of accepting grant money, the plan duty under IC 10-21-1-10 is universal. A separate provision, IC 10-21-1-5(c), additionally requires certification that a site vulnerability assessment was conducted for each building before applying for a Secured School Safety Grant, but that is an extra condition on funding rather than the source of the duty.
The chapter sets no interval. IC 10-21-1-10 requires the plan to be developed, IC 10-21-1-11 requires it to be presented to the governing body in executive session before it is filed, and IC 10-21-1-12 has county school safety commissions receive the plans. None of them names a review cycle, an update cycle, or a re-assessment date. The only annual duty in the chapter runs to the commission, which submits its own minutes and activity summaries to the board.
Yes, in the plan. IC 10-21-1-10(c)(2)(B) requires provisions to prevent unauthorized access to school property and interior areas or rooms, including the management of authorized visitors on school property, before, during, and after regular school hours. That is a planning obligation about outcomes. It prescribes no specific hardware, lock, or door procedure to achieve them.
No. Nothing in IC 10-21-1 requires door position sensors, propped-door alerts, or any continuous reporting of whether a door is open or closed. Door open and closed status technology appears in Indiana only as an eligible purchase under the Secured School Safety Grant, never as a requirement.