Safety & Security (Prepare and Be Aware)
Maintaining a Secure Environment
- By Patrick V. Fiel, Sr.
- 12/01/14
PHOTOS COURTESY OF AIPHONE
Active shooters, registered sex offenders, thieves, vandals and non-custodial parents often enter a K-12 campus through the front door. And it’s surprising how many campuses still allow them to do so without being directed into a pre-defined entry procedure that helps protect students, staff and school property.
Security-conscious schools across the country are taking control of front door access through specific policies and procedures that employ some of the most cost-effective layers of security equipment on the market. Once the front door is secure, the same planning and equipment can help to effectively control access to other school entries.
It’s a generally simple plan that involves locking all doors and keeping them locked throughout the day, especially whenever students are on campus. Then it’s a matter of approving visitors before granting them access.
While the concept behind controlling campus entries is constant, each school is different — in size, age, design and type of construction. That makes it wise for a school to look first to a security consultant with years of campus experience to conduct a thorough risk assessment. The assessment will include the entire campus, surrounding neighborhood and traffic patterns. The assessor will pinpoint a school’s security strengths and its weaknesses and suggest the specific tools and solutions required to secure the entries.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF AIPHONE
Who’s there? A school office receptionist checks with the campus’ video intercom before remotely unlocking the door allowing visitors entry into the building. The image in the top left portion of her screen shows a student who is late for class using the school’s front door video intercom to gain access to the campus.
A good assessor will help a school or district to spend its money more wisely to create effective, efficient and affordable barriers to unwanted campus visitors.
Here is a look at some of the equipment, polices and procedures required to secure the campus and help protect students, faculty and staff.
Locks are the first barrier at all exterior doors. They need to be high quality, electronic locks — with pick guards — that are able to be remotely opened by office personnel once a visitor has been approved to enter.
Video intercoms serve as the campus’ doorbell, alerting staff to a visitor requesting entry into the school. Office personnel can remain safely behind locked doors while viewing and talking with a visitor.
A video intercom consists of a vandalresistant door unit that is mounted just outside the entry. Most units include a color camera, call button and a microphone and speaker for voice communication. Units connect to a master station with a high-resolution monitor that typically sits on a receptionist’s desk.
Once the person is approved for entry, the office staff presses a button on the master station that unlocks the door and allows the visitor to move to the next step, a check-in desk.
Entry vestibules, considered a best practice on many campuses, allow access to the office, yet create an additional barrier — one last locked door — between the visitor and classrooms. Creating a vestibule may require construction of a wall and door.
Visitor management systems are the next step and represent a significant upgrade over the self sign-in books many schools have used for years. Visitors should be required to present a government-issued photo ID that is swiped through the system. Within seconds, the person’s name is checked against federal and state criminal databases and the national sex offender registry. Schools can also enter local data regarding non-custodial parents or disgruntled former employees that may not approved for contact with students. Approved visitors receive a temporary photo ID badge to be worn at all times while on campus. After receiving the badge, the door to the classrooms can be remotely opened.
The entire process beginning with the video intercom shouldn’t take a visitor more than a minute or two to complete. Parents, vendors and volunteers quickly get used to the process and come to appreciate the added security it provides students. There are a several other low-cost steps schools can take to protect the entry, including:
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