SAN BERNARDINO >> North Park Elementary School could have been made safer, to prevent tragedies like the April 10 shooting that left a teacher and a student dead, but it would require turning the school into a “prison,” according to San Bernardino’s police chief.

“Can you create a prison out of a school?” Chief Jarrod Burguan said Thursday. “I’m not so sure people want that.”

North Park reopened on Monday, after being closed for a week following the shooting. Cedric Anderson, 53, of Riverside entered the special education classroom of his estranged wife, Karen Smith, and opened fire, killing her and 8-year-old student Jonathan Martinez and wounding Nolan Brandy, 9.

Anderson and Smith married Jan. 28 but separated in March, police officials said. Smith had apparently not told anyone at the school about the separation.

Anderson reportedly signed in at the front desk and told office staff he was there to drop something off for his wife. Once inside the classroom — without a word — he pulled out a six-shot .357 Magnum revolver and started firing, striking Smith. Anderson then reloaded using a speed-loader, firing a total of 10 bullets. Students Jonathan and Nolan were struck in the exchange. Anderson then turned the gun on himself.

• Photos: Students and staff return to North Park Elementary School a week after shooting

North Park staff has security comparable to or better than other public schools, Burguan said.

“The campus (was) locked down,” Burguan said. “We have the suspect on video going up to a door at the campus and actually trying a door that was locked. He was forced into the one single point of entry, which was directly into the office. He went into the office, he was recognized by staff. There was nothing abnormal and he did what he did.”

The San Bernardino City Unified School District stepped up security measures at the school, including the installation of a camera alert system that will allow someone in the front office to see a visitor before allowing the person access to the school. Other security upgrades are also in place, officials said, but those details would not be made public.

On Monday, the school had 10 additional teachers from other district schools and crisis counselors on hand for students and staff who needed additional support.

At this point, Burguan doesn’t know what additional measures the district can take without dramatically changing the way the school, and the district, work.

“You can make all the rules you want, but at the end of the day what kind of society do we want to live in?” he said. “Even if they had a rule that said nobody’s allowed on campus, what stops him from just walking through the door shooting the clerk and walking 70 feet down the hallway to where the classroom was?”

• Photos: New security policy announced for North Park Elementary after shooting

Classroom B1, which is no longer in use, is the first classroom on the left after one enters the school. The room didn’t have a door, just a curtain.

At the time of the shooting, Smith, 53, was inside her classroom with two aides and 14 special needs students between first and fourth grades. After the shooting, some have argued that had classroom staff been armed, the tragedy could have been prevented. Burguan doesn’t think it would have made a difference.

“Nope. He walked in without warning and just started shooting. She was sitting down, she never saw him,” he said. “Things happened very, very quickly in that classroom. Very quickly.”

His opinion matches that of Jennifer Downing, an instructional assistant at North Park, who was in Classroom B1 with Smith when Anderson opened fire.

“If we had a concealed weapon in that classroom, I could not have gotten to it,” she said after the shooting. “It wouldn’t have mattered, unless it was physically on my body at all times. I don’t think it would have helped.”

Even if she had a gun on her person, Downing doesn’t believe it would have saved Smith’s life.

“It was,” Downing said, snapping her fingers, “guns blazing, first round before we could even look up. There was no reaction time. He didn’t even say a word. I don’t even know if she processed what was happening,” she said.

District, police and other local officials have yet to conduct a review to see what more can be done to reduce the chances of incidents like the North Park shooting from happening again and of minimizing loss of life when it does. But there are limits, Burguan warned.

“You can’t prevent 100 percent of all the bad that’s gonna happen in the world,” he said.

Staff writer Doug Saunders contributed to this report.